The Archaeological Site of Ptolemais

Description

Ptolemais was one of the five major cities (the Pentapolis) in the Cyrenaica – Cyrene, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Taucheira, and Berenice/Euesperides. While closely linked to the cultural trends of the Graeco-Roman world, the five cities of the Pentapolis exemplify the distinctive regional cultural traditions created by the diverse ethnicities that made up the region’s social fabric, notably Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Libyan, Byzantine/Christian, and Islamic. Ptolemais also served a strategic importance in the early 20th century during Italian occupation. The site contains well preserved public and private buildings of great architectural importance. Excavations have produced a wealth of material evidence that testify to its long prosperity as an urban centre, including exceptional mosaics, stone sculptures (statuary, reliefs, sarcophagi), inscriptions, coins, and ceramics. The archaeological site of Ptolemais as it stands today is a unique example of the latest trends in Greek urban planning, from its inception, Ptolemais was planned to be a grand and influential city under the royal patronage of the Ptolemies.

The ancient city of Ptolemais is situated along the Mediterranean coast about 110 km east of the modern city of Benghazi, It occupies a narrow space (about 2 km wide) between the sea and the lower spurs of the Jebel el-Akhdar (Green Mountain), it is situated between two wadis running from the hill of the Mountain to the sea, Wadi Ziwanah on the east and Wadi Khambis on the west.

The city began as a Greek settlement founded in the 7th century BC and functioned as a port for the city of Barka (24 km inland). It is located on the coast where an easy pass ascends the Gebel al Akhdar towards Cyrene. The city later controlled the line of the Roman road to Cyrene.

In the Hellenistic period (at least by the mid 3rd century BC) the settlement was replaced by a new city called Ptolemais, founded by either Ptolemy I or Ptolemy III, Macedonian rulers of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.  The practice of founding new cities as a dynastic symbol of control over a territory was popular policy with Alexander the Great‟s successors. The Ptolemies were also interested in developing port cities as part of their strategic plan to maintain a naval force in the eastern Mediterranean. The early economic success of the city can be gauged by the fact it was invited to participate in the Panhellenic Games in Delphi in the late 3rd century BC.

Ptolemais continued to flourish in the early Roman period and achieved a yet higher prominence in the early fourth century AD, when the city became the capital of the newly created province of Libya  Superior/Pentapolis  under  Diocletian.  At  this  time  Ptolemais  surpassed  Cyrene  still suffering from the heavy damage incurred during the earthquake of 262 AD. Ptolemais was also the seat of an influential Christian bishopric in the Early Christian period. Subsequently the city decayed and Apollonia (Sozusa) supplanted it as capital.  There is no record of the city being fought over during the Arab conquest of North Africa in the 7th century AD, but there is evidence of later occupation (late 10th to early 13th centuries). This continued occupation is implied by Arab writers who refer to it as an anchorage and trading-post in accounts from the 9th, 12th, and 14th centuries AD. By the 18th  and 19th  centuries European explorers, visiting the area to catalogue the standing ruins, described the site as being abandoned. During the Italian occupation in the early  20th   century  a  colonial  town  was  built  next  to  the  ancient  harbour  area  and  Italian fortifications and small forts in the area were also constructed in the area.

Systematic excavations began in the twentieth century, first by Italian and subsequently by American and British teams, all concentrating work on large structures within the city walls. Since 2000, a Polish team using remote sensing and geophysical prospection has created a new plan of the city and its surroundings. Much of the area within the extensive defensive walls is still unexcavated.

The city plan was based on the latest trends in Greek urban planning.  Extensive defensive walls enclosed an area of over 200 hectares. The city was laid out an orthogonal grid plan with major streets running north-south and a main east-west avenue (the Street of the Monuments) that eventually received a triumphal arch dedicated to Constantine the Great in 311-312 AD and a portico at its end. The large city blocks (insulae) measured 100 by 500 Ptolemaic feet (36.5 m by 182.5 m). One of the most remarkable features of Ptolemais are the several well preserved insulae containing large peristyle houses that were built in the Hellenistic period and refurbished and enlarged in the Late Roman period.  These houses, such as the Villa of the Four Seasons, are richly decorated with frescoes and mosaic floors, and often re-embellished in the later Roman period with audience halls and reception areas (such as the House of the Triapsidal Hall). One of the most elaborate of these dwellings is the “Palazzo delle Colonne,” whose Hellenistic plan was remodeled in the first century AD to include a large pillared court. The splendid architectural decoration and use of pillared courtyards reflects Alexandrian influence. The house also contained a large number of Egyptian statues. This residence shares features seen in elite and royal residences in Alexandria and the rest of the Hellenistic world, testifying to the strong connections between the Cyrenaica and Alexandria.  In addition to private baths built within some of the private houses, the city had several public Roman and Byzantine baths. The city also had all the features of a prosperous Roman city: an amphitheater, a hippodrome, and three theaters. The smallest theater, an odeon, was adapted sometime in the fourth or fifth century AD to hold water spectacles. There are also two Christian basilicas of 6th century AD date and a late antique building referred to as "the Fortress of the Dux."

From its inception, Ptolemais was planned to be a grand and influential city under the royal patronage of the Ptolemies. The site lacked nearby water sources, so its water supply depended on cisterns and an aqueduct that carried water from a spring about 8 km east of the city. The size and number of the city‟s public cisterns and reservoirs are impressive. One group of seventeen vaulted cisterns under the Roman “Square of the Cisterns” had a capacity of 7,000 kl. Outside the city are remains of a bridge that carried the aqueduct and a road across the Wadi Ziwanah.

Such energy devoted to ensuring an adequate water supply underscores the importance supporting a population large enough to maintain a strategic harbor. The harbor was on the eastern side of the city and aligned with the main avenue. An ancient lighthouse was positioned on a promontory near the harbor, underneath the present one. A 2009 survey also discovered a submerged pier and a shipwreck, only the third one to be discovered on the Cyrenaican coast, the others having being found in the harbor at Apollonia.

Another feature of note in Ptolemais is the so-called „Royal‟ Tomb or Mausoleum, a tower-tomb of Hellenistic date that stood over 15 meters in height. There is no other tomb of this type or grandeur in the Cyrenaica. It has been proposed that the structure, in style more akin to the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus or the elaborate tower tombs of Palmyra, may have been intended for Ptolemy VIII Physcon Euergetes II who ruled the Cyrenaica from 163 BC until 145 BC at which time he moved back to Egypt to rule both regions after his brother‟s death.  In addition to this tomb, other more regionally typical rock-cut tombs surround the city, some of which were used as quarries in the later period. These tombs bear inscriptions that testify to the varying ethnicities of the inhabitants in the city – Libyan, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian.

A small town built during the Italian occupation in the early 20th  century still exists near the ancient harbour. A number of Italian fortifications and small forts constructed in the same time period also remain in the nearby area.

The  excavations  conducted  by  various  foreign  missions  in  the  20th   century,  have  yielded numerous and important archaeological finds that are now displayed in the museum near the entrance to the site. These include a great    variety of statues, reliefs, architectural elements, mosaics, sarcophagi, pottery and small objects. There are plans to build a new museum in the vicinity.

Ptolemais was the home of Arius, after whom the Arianism condemned at Nicaea in 325 was named. Secundus, who was bishop of Ptolemais and a patron of Arius, is listed among those present at the council. He refused to accept its decree and was deposed by the bishop of Alexandria, but later recovered power.

Synesius was  bishop  of  Ptolemais  from  about  407  to  413,  and  succeeded  by  his  brother Evoptius, who took part in the Council of Ephesus (431), which condemned Nestorius. The acts of the Second Council of Constantinople (553) were signed by Georgius of Ptolemais

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

The city of Ptolemais played a major role in every phase of history in the Cyrenaica,   it began as a Greek settlement founded in the 7th century BC, In the Hellenistic period (mid 3rd century BC) the settlement was replaced by a new city called Ptolemais, it was during this era that the streets were laid out following an orthogonal grid, The city was spared from later architectural development thus the city plan stands today as an exceptional of Hellenistic urban planning.

Ptolemais continued to flourish in the early Roman period and achieved a yet higher prominence in the early fourth century AD, when the city became the capital of the newly created province of Libya Superior/Pentapolis under Diocletian. Ptolemais was also the seat of an influential Christian bishopric in the Early Christian period. Due to its location, origins and long standing history the city bears architectural and artistic evidence of all the Cyrenaica‟s distinctive cultural traditions, ones reflective of the many ethnicities that made up the region‟s social fabric, notably Greek, Roman, and Libyan.

Criterion (ii): The nominated site played a major role in every phase of history in the Cyrenaica, from its early settlement by the Greeks when it served as a harbor town, to being a newly established port city patronized by the Ptolemaic dynasty in the Hellenistic period, to its life as a flourishing Roman city in the Imperial period, ultimately serving as the capital city for the province of Libya Superior/Pentapolis in the late Roman Period, and lastly an important Bishopric in the Early Christian period. There is evidence for occupation in the city into to the 14th century AD. This long span of urban activity allowed for a constant interchange of human values between the cultures of Cyrenaica more consistent through time than that of any other city in the region, including the World Heritage city of Cyrene, whose status greatly declined in the Late Roman period as that of Ptolemais rose.

Criterion (iii): The city of Ptolemais bears architectural and artistic evidence of all the Cyrenaica‟s distinctive cultural traditions, ones reflective of the many ethnicities that made up the region‟s social fabric, notably Greek, Roman, and Libyan. The city also contains evidence for the range of religions that flourished in the region from native Libyan to Greek, Roman, Christian, and Jewish.

Criterion (iv): The site of Ptolemais encompasses a unique architectural ensemble; for it is a unique example of the latest trends in Greek urban planning. Its orthogonal grid plan that encloses city blocks contain some of the best preserved, most elaborately designed and extensively decorated domestic architecture in all of the Cyrenaica. Many of the houses in the site are reflective of the latest fashions in Alexandria and the eastern Mediterranean. These houses include the unique “Palazzo delle Colonne” in the Hellenistic period and residences such as the “House of the Triapsidal Hall” in the Roman period.  The so-called „Royal‟ Tomb or Mausoleum is an elite structure unique in the Cyrenaica.  The city‟s well-designed “Square of the Cisterns” and water supply system is also the best preserved in the Cyrenaica.

Statements of authenticity and/or integrity

The Archaeological site as it stands today encloses its orthogonal grid plan and has not suffered from significant changes or intensive human occupation since antiquity. The border of the property includes the entire ancient city and its outlying monuments including the amphitheatre rock cut tombs and mausoleum.

The site is under the authority of the Department of Antiquities (DOA) and is protected by the Antiquities Law No.3. The DOA has a local office at the site overseeing the management and protection of the site as well as the site museum.

The site does not suffer from any threats to the OUV within its borders; however the site lacks a proper defined buffer zone which can pose difficulty since the site is in close proximity to the Italian era old town and the modern town of Ptolemais. In recent years the envisioned buffer zone of the site witnessed land clearing and building of roads in the neighbouring privately owned land.

Comparison with other similar properties

The city of Ptolemais had a longer history of regional political importance than any other city in the Cyrenaica. Founded by the Ptolemies as a dynastic regional capital, in many ways the architecture of Ptolemais is closer to the sophisticated traditions of Alexandria and the great royal cities of the Ptolemaic, Antigonid, and Seleucid Dynasties. The site contains a number of high status Roman villas and Late Antique structures that are unique in the region. Its luxurious late Roman villas may be compared in complexity of architectural plan and in the quality of their remarkable mosaics to the World Heritage site of the Villa Romana del Casale.

In comparison to many other ancient cities in North Africa, Ptolemais is exceptionally well preserved. In regional status and importance, the city may be compared to the UNESCO World Heritage Archaeological Site of Volubilis in Morocco, a city founded as a Mauritanian capital in the 3rd century BC and which continued to be an important urban centre into the Late Antique period. The urban plan and architecture of both cities and their cultural material bear witness to the range of ancient peoples who created these cultural environments over many centuries. Both served as centres of interchange with the surrounding rural area and were important outposts in the Roman and Late Antique periods.

In Tunisia, the UNESCO World Heritage site of Dougga/Thugga and the non-designated city of Bulla Regia with its remarkable Roman houses are also worthy comparisons.  Both of these Tunisian sites, like Ptolemais, are well preserved examples of cities that flourished on the North African coast from Hellenstic – Late Antique times and served as important regional and commercial centres on the southern edges of the Roman Empire.