The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1

by Various

TUNISIA.

M. de la Blanchère reports that in 1891 the most urgent need in Tunisia was the classification of monuments that should be preserved. The operation is being carried on under the direction of M. Doublet; enquiry was opened in regard to about 150 monuments, nearly all of great importance, of which 27 are already classified. No excavations were undertaken by the service of antiquities, its funds being all employed on finishing the Bardo museum. It has, however, overseen or authorized the following enterprises, the most important of which will be found described in their alphabetical order: Sfaks; Sousse; Henchir Maatria; Dougga; Teboursouk; Henchir Tinah; Maktar.

CARTHAGE.--M. do Vogüé has communicated to the Acad. des Ins. (March 18) a report on the continuation of Father Delattre's excavations at Carthage, which go on giving interesting results which will be fully described in a publication by the explorer himself. At another point a funerary inscription was found of an iron caster. This is the first time the profession is mentioned in Carthaginian texts, which had hitherto mentioned only gold and bronze casters. Of course there was no casting of iron at that time, but only working of the metal.--Revue arch. 1892, II, p. 254.

TERRACOTTA MOULDS.--M. Héron de Villefosse communicated to the Acad. des Inscr. (Nov. 11,) the photographs of seventy-two moulds for intaglios, in terracotta, selected from a collection of over three hundred which were found in the lower part of Carthage, between the hill of St. Louis and the sea. They were all executed in antiquity. There are coin, types, a head of Herakles, similar to that of some silver coins attributed to Jugurtha, the fronting head of Silenus of the coins of Kyzikos, the galley of the coins of Sidon, etc., all of the purest Greek style. There are also some female heads, recalling Greek Sicilian coins; standing figures; an Athena, a Pan, a Hermes fastening his heel-pieces, a Marsyas, an amazon, a nude woman fastening her sandal, recalling coins of Larissa in Thessaly; some of groups, a man overthrown by a lion, a lion devouring a horse, a man standing and killing a kneeling woman, an episode of the contest of Achilles and Penthesilea; finally some purely Egyptian types, such as scarabs with royal cartouches. This collection of moulds was probably made by a manufacturer with the purpose of reproducing them.--Rev. Critique, 1892, No. 47.

CHEMTOU-SIMITHU.--Excavations have been carried on at this site by M. Toutain: they were continued, thanks to a subvention from the Acad. des Inscriptions. In a letter to the Academy dated June 16, M. Geffroy gives an account of what had been discovered up to date. Nearly the whole of the ancient theatre was discovered in a few weeks. In the space occupied by the orchestra was a mosaic, with all the shades of Numidian marble, nine metres in diameter. These are interesting peculiarities in the construction and arrangement of the theatre. It is neither adossed to a hill nor completely isolated: the lower part of the hemicycle of steps which was completely buried, is well preserved. M. Toutain had commenced researches in two necropoli of the city hoping to find tombs and epitaphs of the freedmen and slaves employed in the neighbouring quarries. He had begun the excavation of a large building, perhaps a basilica or a curia, which appears to be about 40 metres long.

In a letter to the Académie, dated October 16, M. Toutain gives information of further discoveries, principally in the theatre and forum. A square was discovered 20 met. wide by 25 met. long, paved with large slabs of granite of greenish blue schist. It is situated in the midst of the ruins of several important monuments, notably a temple and a basilica, and is certainly the forum of Simithu. It is bounded on the south by a monumental exædra whose substructions of cut stone are still in place, and whose architectural decoration can be reconstructed by means of the bases, fragments, columns, capitals, and pieces of cornice which have come to light. Toward the north the forum is bounded by two structures separated by a narrow paved street.

A mile-stone found is important, as containing the name of Emperor Galerius, and dating from the short period when, after the abdication of Diocletian and Maximianus, Hercules, Constantius Chlorus, and Galerius were Augusti (May 1, 305, to July 25, 306). It has also a topographic interest as belonging to the cross-road from Thuburbo majus to Tunis or Carthage, passing by Onellana and Uthina. M. Toutain has traced a system of bars, basins and cisterns, to supply with rain water a small Roman city, whose ruins are now called Bab- Khaled. It would appear as if the public buildings of the city were inhabited and made over at the Byzantine period.--Revue critique 1892, No. 44; Revue arch., 1892, II, pp. 260, 266-7; Chron. des arts 1892, No. 34.

CHERCHELL.--M. Victor Waille has communicated to the Acad. des Insc. the first results of excavations on the field of manœuvres at Cherchell. Captain Hétet and lieutenant Perrin conducted them. Three mosaic pavements were copied: there was found a dedicatory inscription to the governor C. Octavius Pudens Cæsius Honoratus, and some bronzes, among which were the base of a candelabrum and the handle of a chiseled vase, decorated with a helmeted bust of Roma, of the Byzantine period. The excavations are especially fruitful in small objects, pottery, bronzes, coins, etc.--Chron. des arts, 1892, No. 31; Ami des mon. 1892, p. 250.

DOUGGA.--The excavations carried on by MM. Denis and Carton, resulted in the clearing of the temple of Saturn; the discovery of the dedicatory inscription showing it to have been erected for the safety of Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus; the finding of a large number of native steles; and the clearing of the theatre.

HADRUMETUM.--A small lead tablet covered on both sides with inscriptions, has been found in the Roman necropolis. It is a tabella devotionis, to be compared with others found at Hadrumetum, at Carthage and in Gaul. On one side is a series of magic names, accompanied by the figure of a genius with a rooster's head, standing in a boat and holding a torch, on the other side is an adjuration addressed to a certain deus pelagicus ærius: infernal maledictions are called down on the horses and drivers of the green and white factions of the circus. There was a god or genius named Taraxippos, "the scarer of horses," as M. Heuzey remarks.--Rev. arch. 1892, II, p. 267.

MAKTAR.--M. Border exhumed from the mines of the basilica, next to the amphitheatre, four fragments of an imperial dedicatory inscription, and a most interesting altar bearing a dedication in eighteen lines on the occasion of the sacrifice of a bull and a ram for the safety of an Emperor, whose name is hammered out; M. Doublet conjectures him to have been Elagabalus.--A.d.M. 1892, p. 109.

SOUSSE.-In the neo-punic necropolis, on which the camp is situated, two entire vases and 28 fragments of vases were found, decorated with painted inscriptions. In the Roman necropolis, along the Kairwan road, several interesting discoveries were made, among them a hypogeum containing several frescoes in fair preservation, containing curious figures and inscriptions, and also some inscriptions on marble or stucco.--A.d.M. 1892, p. 109.

TEBOURSOUK.--MM. Denis and Carton have excavated the megalithic necropolis of Teboursouk, whose tombs are stone circles, with one or more small dolmens in the centre.--A.d.M. 1892, p. 109.

TUNIS.--Hans von Behrs has contributed to the Vossische Zeitung a report on the museum of the Bardo near Tunis. A summary of it is given in the Berlin Philologische Wochenschrift, November 19.