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Crowe's Tomb at Benghazi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

D. M. Bailey
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Extract

Many vice-consuls of Britain's imperial past found archaeological work a welcome distraction from the tedium of their official duties in remote parts of the world. Some, indeed, like Charles Newton at Mytilene and George Dennis at Palermo, Benghazi, and Smyrna, regarded the excavation and study of the antiquities of the countries in which they were based as their prime duty. Thus, Frederick H. Crowe, a predecessor of Dennis at Benghazi, wrote the following letter to Lord John Russell, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs:

Bengazi 1 Sep. 1860.

My Lord,

I have the honour to report to your Lordship, that in the course of excavating at a place denominated by the Arabs ‘Soliman’, the site of the Ancient Greek Necropolis, situated four miles S.E. of the Town of Bengazi, I had the good fortune to discover at a distance of about 15 feet from the surface, a large vault built of solid masonry, and divided into 14 Compartments or rather Tombs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 67 , November 1972 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1972

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References

Acknowledgements. I am very grateful to Mr. Denys Haynes for allowing me to publish this material. I would also like to thank Dr. Sybille Haynes, Dr. Reynold Higgins, Miss Catherine Johns, Mr. M. J. Price, Mr. A. F. Shore, Professor Donald Strong, and Mr. Michael Vickers for much help and advice during the preparation of this note.

1 In the Public Record Office, FO.101.47.

2 Smith, R. Murdoch and Porcher, E. A., History of the Recent Discoveries at Cyrene 15–16Google Scholar.

3 It would appear that the original drawings and enclosures sent by Crowe were forwarded by the Foreign Office to the Museum in October 1860. I am grateful to Mr. H. Gillett of the Public Record Office for this information. What happened to them after Newton reported on the objects to the Trustees is not now known.

4 Printed by order of the House of Commons, 1 May 1862; p. 17, in the list of acquisitions, the following details are noted: ‘Two small sarcophagi, in white marble, very elegantly ornamented, from a tomb near Benghazi, the ancient Euesperidae, in Africa; several fine terracotta figures and lamps, and fragments of a statuette in gypsum, painted so as to represent the natural colour of the hair and eyes. These interesting sepulchral remains were obtained for the Museum by the late F. H. Crowe, Esq., Her Majesty's Consul at Cairo.’

5 The fate of the other objects from the tomb is not known. Some were perhaps left at the vice-consulate at Benghazi (see the two plaster fragments from Dennis described in the text); perhaps the following letter of 16 Feb. 1880 from one E. H. Crowe is relevant: he offers the Museum ‘about a dozen articles of antique pottery ware’ including ‘a good sized amphora, some smaller vessels, lamps, bowls, etc. These antiques were dug up about 20 years ago from the ruins of Cyrene (sic), an ancient Greek colony, the site of which is near Benghazi in the Regency of Tripoli, North Africa.’ The Museum did not apparently take advantage of his offer.

6 For a discussion of the Cyrenaican funerary portrait, see Rosenbaum, E., A Catalogue of Cyrenaican Portrait Sculpture 13–28Google Scholar.

7 E. B. Harrison, The Athenian Agora i, Portrait Sculpture pl. 22.

8 Higgins, R. A., BMC Terracottas i, 378Google Scholar, points out that Tarantine influence is to be found in Cyrenaican terracottas of this date.

9 Reinach, S., Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine ii. I, 457, 7Google Scholar.

10 Cf. C. C. Edgar, Graeco-Egyptian Coffins, Masks and Portraits, pls. xix–xxx.

11 Notizie archeologiche sulla Cirenaica v (1915) 23Google Scholar. An example which appears to be Cyrenaican has been found as far west as Henchires Scira in Tunisia: Gauckler, P. et al. , Catalogue du Musée Alaoui (supplément) pl. ciii, 3Google Scholar.

12 Cf. JdI v (1890) 118 ff.Google Scholar; Walters, H. B., BMC Terracottas C 863–901Google Scholar; BCH xxix (1905) 383 ff.Google Scholar

13 Hesperia iii (1934) 391Google Scholar fig. 79.

14 Ibid. 420–1 figs. 108–9.

15 Hesperia xviii (1949) pls. 17, 23Google Scholar.

16 BCH lxxxv (1961)Google Scholar pls. xv, xvi; the paper concerning this brazier, 474 ff., brings together a great number of useful references.

17 For this workshop see the very full treatment by G. Heres (who prefers to place the workshop of Romanesis in Miletus) in Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Forschungen und Berichte x (1968) 185 ff.Google Scholar It is unfortunate that our Benghazi lamp was not included in his list, but it was only after his publication that the lampmaker's name was noticed.

18 Maiuri, B., Museo Nazionale di Napoli 146Google Scholar; Loeschcke, S., Lampen aus Vindonissa 35Google Scholar. Another green-glazed example has been found at Pompeii: NS 1921, 458Google Scholar; Balil, A., Estudios sobre lucernas romanas i. 21Google Scholar. See also Ballardini, G., L'eredità ceramistica dell'antico mondo romano 103Google Scholar fig. 129.

19 This form of glazing requires two firings, a biscuit firing and a glost firing, so there is nothing to prevent a vitreous-glazing potter using ‘biscuited’ objects made elsewhere. The writer knows of at least one modern Cornish ‘Studio Pottery’ where flower-pots, purchased in bulk from an industrial manufacturer, are decorated with vitreous glazes and retired.

20 Notizie archeologiche sulla Cirenaica v (1915) 25Google Scholar fig. 10.

21 J. Perlzweig, The Athenian Agora vii, Lamps of the Roman Period pl. 4. 91.

22 V. Spinazzola, Le arti decorative in Pompei pl. 277.

23 J. M. C. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School pl. lv, 2.

24 For a map showing the site of Euesperides and the are a of Ain es Selmani, see Antiquity xxvi (1952) 211Google Scholar fig. 2. See also JRS lxi (1971) 66Google Scholar fig. 4.

25 Libya Antiqua ii (1965) 100, 92–9Google Scholar.

26 Ibid. 100, 100–1.

27 Many of these paintings were lithographed and published in R. Murdoch Smith and E. A. Porcher, History of the Recent Excavations at Cyrene. See also Expedition v (1962) 3, 28–31Google Scholar.