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Hadd Hajar, a clausura in the Tripolitanian Gebel Garian south of Asabaa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

Extract

In the Gebel Garian, about 20 kilometres south of Asabaa, the map-makers of 1964 indicated an ancient wall (Fig. 1) called Hadd Hajar (i.e. wall of stone) running south-west for six kilometres from Ras al Tays al Abyad (858 m; the Hill of the White Goat) on which stood a watch tower, to Ras al Said (764 m). The country crossed by Hadd Hajar is about 690-730 m above sea-level with a gently-undulating surface constituting a fairly open and level valley. The hills are covered with esparto-grass. On the west the Wadi Wamis winds among closely-set hills while, in the north-east, the wall is carried for a further three quarters of a kilometre across a narrow valley from Ras al Tays al Abyad to another hill Ras al Saqifah. An old track comes southwards down this valley flanked on the east side by a barrier of hills over 800 m high. Where the track crosses the wall there is a Roman building (Gasr al Saqifah) with traces of an archway for people and flocks to pass through. Two kilometres to the south is an old cistern (Majin Saqifah) presumably Roman. Beyond, the track continues about 25 kilometres to a large well, Bir al Shaqaykah (Sceghega), after which it is another 28 kilometres south-eastwards to Mizdah on the Wadi Sofeggin.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1980

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References

Notes

1 See U.S. Map of Libya, AMS 1, P761: Sheet 1888.1, Bir Ali Bin Hamid, and the adjoining sheet 1888.IV. (1964). Map references, 925249-870229. [The term clausura (bolt or bar), is frequently used for a short boundary wall or ditch.]

Olwen Brogan, Peter Holmes and Philip Kenrick went to look for Hadd Hajar in 1971. It is briefly mentioned on p.11 of the Second Ann. Rpt. of the Society for Libyan Studies (1970-71) and a photograph was published in the Third Ann. Rpt. (1971-72, pl. VIII). Subsequent visits have been made by the writer, Tina Watson, Paul Arthur and, in June 1979, by Professor G. D. B. Jones and Charles Daniels, all of whom shared in the work reported in this article.

2 Trousset, Pol, Recherches sur le Limes Tripolitanus (Sud Tunisien), (1974) pp. 139141, gate tower, p. 65, Fig. 9Google Scholar

3 Nouvelles Archives des Missions, xii (1904) p. 1619Google Scholar.

4 Ward-Perkins, J. B. and Goodchild, R. G., ‘The Limes Tripolitanus, Journal of Roman Studies xxxix (1949), 8990Google Scholar (also in Libyan Studies edited by Reynolds, Joyce (1976), 24, 2829, pl. 19)Google Scholar

5 IRT 964, 965, 966.