Surveying and documentation of the archaeological city of Barca (Al-Marj)/مشروع المسح الاثري لمدينة برقة

Naser ALHARARI (Department of Antiquities, Benghazi, Libya)

The city of Bārkī/Barca (al-Marǧ/El Merj) is located in the oriental part of Libya, Cyrenaica, about 100 km east from Euhesperides/Hesperis (Benghazi, today) — one of the five cities of the Pentapolis along with the above mentioned, Cyrene, Apollonia and Taucheira/Tocra. Founded around 570 BCE, we summarized its birth according to Herodotus, in the Fourth Book of his Histories, section 160/1:

This Battus had a son Arcesilaus (Ἀρκεσίλαος); on his first coming to reign, he quarrelled with his brothers, until they left him and went away to another place in Libya, where they founded a city for themselves, which was then and is now called Barce (Βαρκή); and while they were founding it, they persuaded the Libyans to revolt from the Cyrenaeans.

The city went through periods of blooming, reaching its peak in the area. It had its own harbour, Ptolemais, and its own coinage (in 525 BCE). 

However, inspite of what has been said, its history and its location remain an obscure enigma, and is the subject of debate between historians and researchers. Many questions revolve around Barca, especially for what regards its location and foundation. Did the Greeks create it ex nihilo? Was the site already inhabited?

There is no doubt that such issues have been regularly tackled by the Academia, with some success. Besides, excavations have been conducted in the city, notably the Italian missions in the 1950s when the road was constructed, and the English field researches in the 1990s, without let alone the discoveries made accidentally. All produced results, with evidences and testimonies attesting the presence of an antique civilization in the vicinity. 

We can now move on to the Islamic era. We may retrieve a number indications from the texts, in the travelogues for example, but also in the inscriptions — among them some dating back to the Fatimid period and exhibited in the Museum of Ptolemais. 

Anyone wandering in the city today will notice many archaeological witnesses and come across columns and chapiters from the early Islamic times, especially in the south eastern part of the old city of El-Merj. On the timeline we also encounter graves from the Ottoman period. Many of these architectural elements were reused to build historical sites in situ. No wonder then that a big part of the artefacts shown at the aformentioned Museum of Ptolemais come from there.

Hence this disturbing question: where was it located? What are the tangible clues available to answer it? This gave birth to the project of a field prospection in the old town of El-Merj. The goal was clear: to record as much scattered proofs as possible in order to reframe a chronology, through the study of the collected potteries, for example. Resorting to geophysics should also help to determine future excavations.

                  Focused on the medina, with an average surface area of 140,17 ha, it reaches the railway in the south and the main road in the north, limited by the river al-Gūd in the west and the pond called Umm al-Maḫālī in the east. A standard and modern methodology was applied to the operation, with a chessboard-like division of the zone. Two teams work together along parallel lines, relying on GPS devices in order to save the coordinates. All archaelogical findings have been registered and ground samples gathered, inscribed in 1-meter-diagonal circles. The campaign ends with the creation of a database supported by a QGIS — a Geographic Information System software —, including digitized maps and statistics. In 2017, the square BR1 — of about 21.04 ha — was explored. 355 points were logged according to the procedure exposed above. 

The variety of ceramic shards is evident just as the richness of architectonic components or funerary elements.

The cemetery Awlād al-ʿAmā contains most of the findings, remainings of constructions, but also columns and chapiters, or graves that go back to the Ottoman era. It was initially situated high up.

Besides, various foundation walls could be marked and inventoried inside the madrasa of ʿUqba on its southern part, but also some extensions on the western part of the cemetery Awlād al-ʿAmā, next to the Senusi zawiya.

This first stage of the programmed field work has shown how rich the area is. Unfortunately, an important part has been lost, due to bad practices, like the re-use of archaelogical stones in new buildings, which constitues a huge challenge for the preservation of the local heritage. The situation demands 1) support to complete field prospection; 2) support to conduct excavations; 3) finalizing the study of ceramics and classifying the items.

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