NORTH AFRICA The archaeological documents of north Africa reflect the cul tural conditions recorded in its ancient history, the imposition of successive alien civilizations by dominant Mediterranean Powers upon a receptive but resistant native population. The ancient in vaders were (under their political names) Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals and Byzantines; the Arab invasions, which be gan in the 7th century A.D., belong to modern history.
The native Libyan and Berber (q.v.) ele ments, whether aboriginal or not, have persisted without visible change from the prehistoric period to the present day. Their most ancient handiwork is represented by stone implements and simple pottery found in cave-dwellings, figures of men and animals engraved on rocks, some fortress-walls and many sepulchral monu ments of megalithic type, square and circular dolmens, cairns and cromlechs. This material is related on the one side to the most primitive remains of Spain and south France, on the other side to those of Egypt and Crete ; but while neolithic culture in the Egyptian and European areas was superseded in the prehistoric age, the African stone implements seem to have re mained in use in certain districts until very recent times. It is seldom possible to date these monuments even approximately. The Berber language was inscribed on stone, often in conjunction with Punic and Latin texts, in a local alphabet which is still current among the Tuaregs (q.v.) of the Sahara. Beside this backward element there was in historical times an urban popula tion more or less civilized by contact with Greeks and Semites; but it does not appear to have developed a distinctive art. Its surviving monuments are mostly sepulchral : most notable are two pyramidal structures near Tipaza (anc. Tipasa) and Batna in Algeria. The former, called the Tomb of the Christian Woman (Kbor er Roumia), is evidently a royal tomb and per haps that of Juba II., the philhellene king of Mauretania in the time of Augustus. The other, called the Medracen (Madghasen), is older, and may be the tomb of Massinissa, the Numidian ally of Rome in their last war with Carthage. Both are low cones of stepped masonry set on cylindrical bases which have cornices borne by engaged columns; their diameters measure about 200 feet. The form may have been derived from the native cairns, but it closely resembles the monumental tumuli of Italy and Asia. The architectural orders are Greek, with some archaisms and other peculiarities that indicate Punic influence.
The Phoenician settlement, of which Carthage was ultimately the chief city, is assigned to the i2th century B.C., but its earliest known remains are not older than the 7th. At the time of its fall in 146 B.c. Carthage controlled nearly the whole of what is now Tunisia, and was in touch with the native kingdom of Numidia on the west, and through the Phoenician territory of Tripolitania with the Greek colonies of Cyrenalca on the east.
Nothing is left of the Punic city of Carthage and very little of its Roman successor, the colony which was founded as the capital of Africa after the destruction of the original Carthage. But its site is indicated by a zone of cemeteries, which lay outside the walls. It is a large semicircular area bounded on its short side by the sea ; its central point, the modern St. Louis' Hill, was cer tainly the Punic citadel, the Byrsa, and the port was south of this, near the place where two lagoons now lie. These agree per haps fortuitously with ancient descriptions of the commercial and war harbours, the latter having the Admiralty Island in its midst ; but the coast has greatly changed even in the last cen tury, and ancient lines of sea-walls and quays have been identified on the outer coast. The curse that Rome invoked upon the Punic site has operated on its own foundation. After the Arab sack, the city was abandoned by the conquerors, and became a quarry for Mediterranean masons of all later ages. The cathedral of Pisa is said to have been built with stones of Carthage. A few of the larger structures can be traced. On the Byrsa is a temple of Aesculapius ; in the western plain, an amphitheatre ; on either side of the northern hill, a theatre and an Odeum; in the eastern plain, the baths, better preserved in the Arab name of the locality (Dermesh) than in its soil. The waterworks have fared better: there are great vaulted reservoirs at Dermesh and La Malga, fed by an aqueduct from a copious source at Zaghouan, ioo miles away.
The Punic graves that have been found are not older than 70o B.C. They are mostly double chambers approached by shafts ; burials were often made in stone coffins with lids carved as recumbent human figures. There are numerous grotesque clay masks which were placed in the graves to keep evil spirits away. Personal trinkets and jewellery are the other furniture.
In a sanctuary of Baal at Dougga (Thugga) birds' bones were buried in jars. This temple, which was dedicated to Saturn under Roman rule, was enclosed in a square colonnade. A temple of Tanit-Caelestis at the same city stands in a semicircular court. A mausoleum built there in the 4th century B.C. and recently reconstructed was designed in Graeco-Phoenician style, and bore a bilingual inscription in Libyan and Punic. The art of Carthage was rapidly hellenized, probably by contact with Greek colonies in Sicily rather than with those of Africa.
The largest Greek city in Africa was Cyrene, one of the greatest cities of the Greek world. Yet its famous and con Ispicuous site was almost inaccessible until the 2oth century. In 186i two young officers of the British forces at Malta, R. Mur doch Smith and E. A. Porcher, found and identified the temple of Apollo, sent to England a large series of sculptures, now in the British Museum, and excavated at other points outside and inside the city, but could not stay long enough to explore its topography more definitely. An expedition equipped by the Archaeological Institute of America made a good beginning in 1910, but met with organized hostility among the natives, and before its second season had begun the country was seized by Italy. All archae ological work in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania has since been directed by the Italian Government. The results at Cyrene show that the Roman city occupied the two hills that are the landmarks of the site. The western hill was the Greek acropolis and contained the agora; on the eastern hill is a Doric temple and a stadium ; the residential quarters lay in the dividing valley and on the south-west slope of the eastern hill. At the north end of the valley, outside the city wall, the sanctuary of Apollo stands on a partly artificial platform below the fountain, Kyra. The low and narrow channel of this famous spring can be followed for a quarter of a mile inside the mountain; ancient inscriptions are scratched and moulded on the clay that covers its walls, and the mouth of the channel is an open chamber cut in the face of the cliff. Rows of chamber-tombs with elaborate architectural fronts are cut or built in the slopes of the plateau. It seems that the city when fully excavated will be another example of the conventional Roman splendour which is the characteristic element in north African antiquities; but the sanctuary is a new feature, preserving its original plan, and important remains of the Greek structures have been found beneath the Roman ornament. The sanctuary is a walled precinct like that of Delphi. It contains the temples of Apollo and Artemis, each with a great altar in front, and smaller shrines of lesser deities. A curious adjunct of the Arte misium is an underground Nymphaeum, apparently for purifica tory rites. The Apollo temple has treasure-cists sunk in its floor. In Roman times two bath-establishments were intruded on the terrace, from one of which some 20 marble statues were re covered, including a headless Aphrodite now in the museum of the Terme at Rome. The rest of the material from Cyrene is at Bengazi. On the west side of the precinct is a Greek theatre. The Sacred Way leads from the sanctuary past the fountain to the agora, a colonnaded area of the usual Roman type containing the provincial capitoliurn and other official buildings. Among the Greek survivals here are the heroon and a small circular structure which was the tomb of the first Battos, founder of the city and of the dynasty which ruled it. The round tomb is apparently the base on which stood a column depicted on some Cyrenaic coins. Curious sepulchral monuments found in the rock-tombs are sculp tured busts with heads in which the face was indicated by paint ing, or with tapering columnar necks instead of heads. Greek art is rare : a few archaic votive statutes have been found and further excavation will doubtless produce others. The archaic strata should also help to determine the origin of the so-called Laconian or Cyrenaic pottery. (See POTTERY, Greek.) A small bronze head of a bearded man (5th century B.c.) has been found by the Italians, and a marble head of Athena (said to be 4th century) was excavated by the American expedition, but the finest work of art from Africa is a Hellenistic bronze head of a young Berber, which was found by Smith and Porcher in the temple of Apollo. It is also an anthropological document of great value. There are other Hellenistic pieces among the numerous marble statues from Cyrene, but the sculpture here as in other north African cities is generally of Roman date. The other cities of Cyrenaica have produced Greek terra-cotta statuettes and painted vases, mostly from tombs; among the vases are several oil-jars which were prizes in the Panathenaic games. The Punic colonies must have contained examples of Greek art, and the Mauretanian capital of Juba II. at Cherchel (Caesarea) was decorated with imported statuary, some fragments of which survive. Some good examples of Hellenistic sculpture have come from the sea. They were found in a sunken ship which was located in 1907 off Mahedia near the Lesser Syrtes, and are now in the museum of the Bardo at Tunis. The most important is a bronze herm signed by Boethos of Chal chedon. There are many decorative bronzes belonging to fur niture, and parts of large marble vases and candelabra in Neo Attic style. The ship's hold was divided into three compartments, and the deck was laden with marble columns. The date of the wreck is placed in the 2nd century B.C. Two large bronze statu ettes, a standing boy and a seated girl, came from the harbour of Bone (Hippo Regius) in 1912, and a bronze horseman, said to be of the 5th century B.c., was excavated at Ksar Farun (V olu bilis) in Morocco.
Most of the Roman cities are comparatively late foundations. The civilization of Africa was never finished, and its imperial history is a record of continual progress southwards and westwards from the original province to the Sahara and the ocean. Even the older Greek and Carthaginian cities, such as Cyrene and Thugga, and the native capitals of Cirta and Caesarea, were converted to the metropolitan Roman model in the mature imperial age. But the ordinary African township was a mushroom growth, built to an emperor's order and peopled with colonists from the army and the countryside. As the citizens were Roman ized by the gift of the Latin name, so the dignity of their city was asserted in its public buildings. Theatres and baths were erected and adorned by the munificence of wealthy Africans, to whom and to Roman landowners and their agents belonged the luxurious villas that are scattered through the country districts. But the urban population in general was meanly housed. The best example of a new city is Timgad (Thamugadi) in south-east Algeria (Numidia), north of Mt. Aures. It was founded by Trajan as a colony in A.D. 100, and built by military architects and labour from the Legion III. Augusta, whose discharged soldiers were the colonists. The site is laid out on the lines of a military camp, a square cut up into small blocks (insulae) by intersecting streets drawn parallel to the enclosing ramparts.. A monumental gate way (the so-called triumphal arch of Trajan) stands in the middle of the west side. At the central crossing of the two main streets (cardo and decumanus) is the forum, occupying the space of eight insulae, and next to the forum is a theatre. Other public buildings now inside the ramparts are a market-place, a library and baths. The city rapidly outgrew its walls; the later capitolium, more baths, a larger market, another triumphal arch, pagan temples and Christian churches were built outside, and as the town grew its formal character was lost. The camp in which the legion itself was permanently quartered is Lambaesis, 20M. W. of Timgad. It was established in the first half of the 2nd century, and consists of a fortified square intersected by the two main roads and containing military offices, barracks and baths. A great part of the site is covered by a modern prison. To the south lies the town that attached itself to the legion, entered through monumental arches and equipped with the usual apparatus of capitol and lesser temples, theatres, amphitheatre and baths. Lembaesis is a unique example of a permanent camp. Cardo and decumanus are paved with stone and bordered with colonnades, and south of their intersection stands nearly to its full height the four-arched entrance to the praetorium, leading to a court with porticoes behind which are the headquarters' offices, legionary shrines and armouries.
Other municipal foundations were built on the same model as Timgad, but not always with the formal plan that can only be achieved on an empty site. The best preserved structures are probably those of Lebda (Leptis Magna) in Tripolitania. This was the native city of the emperor Severus, and was magnificently adorned by him. It has been covered by wind-borne sand, which overthrew whole walls with its weight and at the same time buried and protected their ruins. But many walls and columns are still standing with cornices and entablatures intact. At the other end of the Roman dominion, in Morocco, lies Ksar Farun (Volubilis) near Meknes, a solitary outpost of classical culture in a barbarous land. A triumphal arch and the remains of a basilica were visible before its excavation. The site was largely cleared by prisoners of war in 1915. Other well-preserved or excavated cities are, in Algeria, Jemila (Cuicui), Khamissa (Thubursicum Numidorum), and Tipaza (Tipasa) ; in Tunisia, Bou Grara (Gighti), Dougga (Thugga), Henchir Kasbat (Thu burbo Maius), Medeina (Althiburus), and Sbeitla (Sufetula), and Sabratha in Tripolitania. In all of these the usual public places are represented, the forum with its curia, basilica, and rostra, flanked by temples and porticoes which sheltered honorific statues. Khamissa has its table of standard measures still in place ; Timgad, Lembaesis, Jemila and Henchir Kasbat have markets appropriately fitted for various commodities. In the military foundations these lie just outside the gates, but Timgad has also smaller and perhaps later markets within the ramparts. There is also a library at Timgad, unique in Africa. Baths and triumphal arches (gateways) abound on these and many other sites, and each city has its theatre; those of Cherchel and Dougga are particularly well preserved. The finest amphitheatre is at El Jem (Thysdrus). The official sacred building of a provincial town was the capitolium, and was usually placed near the forum, but at Timgad it lies outside the walls. The regular tripartite plan is seen in this example. At Dougga the front columns with their pediment are still standing, and at Sbeitla the capitol consists of three separate shrines. A temple at Tebessa (Theveste) is nearly intact, and has an elaborately carved parapet but no pediment. A notable temple is that of Aesculapius at Lembaesis, which has a thermal establishment attached and is approached through an avenue of subsidiary chapels. Many miles of aqueducts are stand ing between the cities and the springs from which they drew their water. The supply of Carthage came from Zaghouan, where there is an elaborate Nymphaeum. Similar water-sanctuaries exist at Hammam Derraji (Biala Regia), Khamissa and elsewhere; the aqueduct at Sbeitla is carried over the ravine on a massive bridge. Houses of Graeco-Roman design like those of Pompeii have been excavated on many sites : most famous is the House of Sertius at Timgad, but this does not belong to the original city. Bulla Regia has some underground houses, and there are catacombs at Sousse (Hadrumetum).
Large quantities of Roman sculpture have been found in these excavations, and are housed in the local museums, among them many imperial portraits and other pieces of historical value. In scriptions also are abundant. But the peculiar artistic riches of north Africa are mosaic pavements, which have for their subjects, besides decorative patterns, seascapes and landscapes, historical and mythological scenes, and incidents of agricultural life, fishing, hunting and games. Among them are portraits of Xenophon from Sbeitla and Virgil from Sousse. A large and varied series comes from a villa near Zliten in Tripolitania.
Byzantine.—Mosaic decoration is a prominent feature in the remains of Early Christian churches (basilicas) : there are particularly fine examples in the baptisteries of Jemila, Sbeitla and Timgad. At the last place the church is attached to a monastery, as also at Tebessa. Some of the churches are Late Roman, others are Byzantine foundations. During the short in terval of Vandal occupation (A.D.
there seems to have been no architectural activity, but some fortification and a good deal of military demolition date from this epoch. Examples of the latter are supplied by the theatres of Carthage, which were filled in with the ruins of their superstructures. The great fortress walls that dominate many sites are Byzantine. They were erected to hold the civilized country against native tribes, the same ag gressors that the Roman conquerors had to face ; and it is significant that the two most imposing Byzantine strongholds, at Haidra and Tebessa, are on the sites of the first permanent camps that the Roman legion fortified on Mt. Aures (Ammaedara and Theveste). Haidra is the type of a military fort, Tebessa of a fortified city. The fortress-walls were made of ancient materials, and often incorporate whole buildings of preceding ages. Triumphal arches at Tebessa are worked into the circuit of the ramparts; one at Haidra was built up to make a tower; the capitols of Dougga and Sbeitla were turned into forts. The ruin of classical buildings involved in these defensive works was immense, and it has been justly said that the real vandals of north Africa were the Byzantines. Arab conquests, though fatal to town-dwellers, did no great damage to the structures. Indeed their subsequent desertion and neglect have been the means of preserving so many Roman cities to an extent unequalled in any. other land. (E. J. F.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-R. Cagnat, Carthage, Timgad, Tebessa et les Villes Bibliography.-R. Cagnat, Carthage, Timgad, Tebessa et les Villes antiques de l'Afrique du Nord (im, a short illustrated survey). Detailed accounts of particular sites and monuments are mostly in series of monographs or periodicals published by the local Govern ments: S. Gsell, Les Monuments antiques de l'Algerie (1901, Service des Monuments Historiques) ; R. Cagnat and P. Gauckler, Les Monu ments historiques de la Tunisie (1898, Direction des Antiquites et Arts) ; Musees et Collections archeologiques de l'Algerie et de la Tunisie; Notiziario archeologico del Ministero delle Colonie and Africa Italiana (from 1915, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania).
