Archaeology & Ancient history of Tarhuna-Libya
Ducoments
Ducoments
An Expedition to Tripoli
Author(s): Vicomte de Mathuisieulx
Source: Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 36, No. 12, (1904), pp. 736-744
Published by: American Geographical Society
At a single point of the coast the hills rise above the sea; this
is in the environs of Khoms, where the little plateau of Tarhouna
throws out a spur, channelled by the ancient waters.
Geographers have erred in tracing water-courses in the plain, or
Djeffara, and flowing into the sea. In the western part no one of
the streams of the interior plateau goes beyond the foot of the
great cliff, where they spread out on the sand and create a zone for
the culture of grain. It is only in the eastern part of the country,
where the plain is narrowed by the terrace of Tarhouna, that some
wadys contribute in an intermittent way their thread of water to the
Mediterranean; such are the Ramel, the Msid, the Lebda, the
Cinyps.
In my two previous journeys I had explored all the Djeffara and
the interior plateau. I had yet to study the terrace of Tarhouna,
and find in what way it was connected with the high central land.
From Khoms I took the route towards Gariana via Msellata. The
Tarhounian plateau, which is intermediate between the coast and
the Djebel, 2,000 feet high, measures, on the average, only I,ooo
feet. It descends from the southwest to the northeast in such a
way that where it joins the Djebel it is more than 1,300 feet high,
while the last hills on the sea measure hardly three hundred.
From this conformation it results that the wadys Temsiouan and Oukirre, which we identified with the mouths of the Lebda and the
Cinyps, are perfectly dry and without banks, like ribbons of verdure;
while the wady Ramel and the Msid, cutting an abnormal
ravine for themselves, have ploughed the soil very deep.
The Tarhouna is continued by calcareous rocks, like all the other
Tripolitan elevated land; but there is a very great number of
basaltic columns, which pierce the generally level surface with
bristling cones. In the vertical sections of the wadys are frequently
found basaltic pillars, their black line marking itself on the
white surfaces like so many sheaves, spreading widely open at the
upper part. I remarked that the projecting rocks assumed the
pointed form wherever they were due to the basaltic flow, while
their summits were harmoniously rounded when they resulted from
erosion.
The Tarhouna was densely peopled in antiquity. The innumerable
vestiges of Roman settlements show that the ancients cultivated
the olive to a great extent. We found everywhere the remains
of curious oil presses, which Barth believed to be altars for human
sacrifice. Every settlement possessed several of these torculars,
which, strangely enough, are the only monuments left standing
among the ruins of dwellings, though their elevated shape should
seem to have marked them for destruction.
To-day the Tarhouna is almost a desert. Apart from the grain
fields of Msellata, of the Kasr Tarhouna, and a few other localities,
we meet no sign of life but a few wandering Arabs. For a few years
past these shepherds have taken up a new industry; they gather the
natural yield of the halfa and take it to the seashore, where it is
exported for the paper factory. They overload their camels with
twice the ordinary burden of three hundred pounds.
How does it happen that the olive trees, once so abundant, as
attested by the remains of the presses, have all disappeared? I
think this must be laid to the charge of the Arab invasion, which
destroyed or neglected the trees, the Arabs devoting themselves
only to the raising of sheep.
In the very centre of the plateau of Tarhouna I had the good
fortune to discover a Neo-Punic inscription, the only one which
possesses a precise date, and consequently an historical document
of great value.
The highest point of the plateau is the Msid, which rises to 1,8oo
feet. From the summit we embrace all the region bounded by the
Djebels, Djemma, Magra, Chaiet, and Hammas on the east; while
on the west opens, like a great cleft, the valley of wadyRhane, marking the separation from the great central plateau. Beyond the
wady Rhane, in fact, we come to the high lands or T'ahar.