



Saturday, October 27, 2012

Greek and Byzantine tombs found in Alexandria

View of the excavated tomb




MSA minister Mohamed Ibrahim stated that the aim of the excavations was to inspect the area for archaeological artifacts before declaring it free for residential building reports Archaeology News Network.


A finely decorated clay container from the second century BC was among the discoveries, he added.

Director general of Alexandria antiquities, Mohamed Mostafa, explained that the most important tomb is one dating from the Greco-Roman era which include an open courtyard with two rocky cylindrical columns in the middle. 
Burial urn

Two burial shafts filled with human skeletons and clay pots were also uncovered.

A cecorated 'Hidra' container -- a large pot filled with burned human remains -- was also unearthed along with a tombstone bearing the deceased’s name.

Mostafa told Ahram Online that the tomb’s walls still bear layers of plaster and traces of red paintings.

The second tomb has eight rock-hewn steps and is located under a modern building; the third and fourth ones are found on a deeper level and house a collection of clay lamps and pots of different sizes and shapes.

Within the debris, said Mostafa, archaeologists discovered a small burial site for a woman and her son dating from the late Roman period.

Following the discovery, the area will now be declared a protected archaeological site and all construction work prohibited.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Byzantine Fortress of Tureta in Croatia

The Byzantine Fortress of Tureta in Croatia. 
The fortress is the most significant structure on the Kornati islands dating from the Byzantine period. It is located on the island of Kornat and was probably built in the 8th century. It is assumed that the fortress was built up for military purposes to protect and control the navigation in this part of the Adriatic Sea.
For over 1,000 years Dalmatia was ruled by Rome.



Generals under Emperor Justinian I
re-conquered Dalmatia.

Theme of Dalmatia

The Theme of Dalmatia was a Byzantine theme (a military-civilian province) on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea in Southeastern Europe, headquartered at Zadar.

Dalmatia first came under Byzantine control in the 530s, when the generals of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) seized it from the Ostrogoths in the Gothic War. The invasions of the Avars and Slavs in the 7th century destroyed the main cities and overran much of the hinterland, with Byzantine control limited to the islands and certain new coastal cities such as Split and Dubrovnik, while Zara (Zadar) became the local episcopal and administrative center, under an archon.

At the turn of the 8th to 9th century, Dalmatia was seized by Charlemagne (r. 768–814), but he returned it to the Byzantines in 812, after the so-called "Pax Nicephori". It is unclear whether the region was under actual rather than nominal Byzantine authority after that; the local cities appear to have been virtually independent. Nevertheless, an archon of Dalmatia is mentioned in the 842/843 Taktikon Uspensky, and a seal of a "strategos of Dalmatia" dated to the first half of the century may indicate the existence of a Dalmatian theme, at least for a short time

Eastern Roman Theme of Dalmatia
Established as a theme about 870 AD
Collapse of Byzantine control in 1060s

The traditional date of the establishment of Dalmatia as a regular theme is placed in the early years of the reign of Emperor Basil I the Macedonian (r. 867–886), following the expeditions of Niketas Oryphas.

Around 923, Tomislav of Croatia, the Byzantine Emperor and the two church patriarchs were involved a deal that transferred the control of the Byzantine Dalmatian cities to the new Croatian kingdom. This started a series of similar maneuvers and the Croatian–Bulgarian Wars, during which the Byzantine Emperors of the Macedonian dynasty maintained varying degrees of control over the Dalmatian cities.

In the south, the city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), still under Byzantine control, started to grow in importance, and its Church diocese was elevated to an archbishopric in 998. In the early 11th century, Byzantine control over Dalmatian cities started to be contested by the Serbian principality of Duklja, whose ruler Jovan Vladimir took control of Bar, near the border with the Theme of Dyrrhachium.

Roman ruins in Dalmatia

His feats were repeated and bested by Stefan Vojislav twenty years later, and in 1034, the Bar diocese was elevated to an archdiocese, but a war with Theophilos Erotikos soon followed. Stefan Vojislav's son Mihailo obtained papal support following the East–West Schism of 1054, further weakening Byzantine influence in Dalmatia.

Except for Dubrovnik and the southern third of Dalmatia, Byzantine control collapsed in the 1060s. Constantine Bodin pledged his support for Pope Urban II, which confirmed Bar's status as an archdiocese in 1089, and resulted in a temporary demotion of the Ragusan diocese. By the end of the 11th century, the Kingdom of Hungary took the Kingdom of Croatia's place in controlling the northern Dalmatian hinterland. Duklja remained largely under Byzantine control, with a series of internal conflicts weakening its leaders.

Byzantine predominance was restored under Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180), but vanished after his death and was replaced by Venetian control.

The Byzantine Fortress of Tureta is located in the Kornati Islands  -  an archipelago of Croatia, also known as the Stomorski islands, is located in the northern part of Dalmatia, south from Zadar and west from Šibenik, in the Šibenik-Knin county. With 35 km in length and 140 islands, some large, some small, in a sea area of about 320 km², the Kornati are the densest archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The name of the archipelago is the plural form of the name of the largest island, Kornat.

(Byzantine Theme of Dalmatia)

The Fortress of Tureta



Eastern Roman Themes (Military Districts) in 1025 AD

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Byzantine Morocco

Ceuta, North Africa
The remnants of the city walls are arguably Ceuta’s most interesting historical monument. The fortifications were originally built by the Byzantines and later improved on by the Portuguese and Spanish in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Roman and Byzantine Morocco

The Romans controlled all or part of the Morocco area from about 42 AD until the last Byzantine outpost fell about 710 AD.

Roman rule was interrupted for about 100 years by the invasion of the Vandals from Europe.  When Eastern Roman rule was restored it was mostly along the coastal zone.

The Walls of Ceuta, North Africa
The ancient Royal Walls originally date back to the 5th century.  Ceuta's location has made it an important commercial trade and military way-point for many cultures, beginning with the Carthaginians in the 5th century BC, who called the city Abyla. It was not until the Romans took control of the region in AD 42 that the port city, then named Septa, assumed an almost exclusive military purpose. It changed hands again approximately 400 years later, when Vandal tribes ousted the Romans. It then fell into the hands of the Visigoths, and finally become an outpost of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Around 710, as Muslim armies approached the city, its Byzantine Governor, Julian changed his allegiance, and exhorted the Muslims to invade the Iberian Peninsula.

The Roman Province of Mauretania Tingitana



The Roman Province of Mauretania Tingitana.





End of the Roman Road, Volubilis; Morocco
Morocco's most impressive and atmospheric ancient site is the roman city of Volubilis.  Originally a Carthaginian trading post in the 3rd century BC, Volubilis gradually became distant Roman base in the 1st century AD and marked the farthest extent of the Imperial road.




Roman Triumphal Arch in Volubilis




Volubilis Capitol

Volubilis Basilica

The Byzantine Fortress of Monte Hacho
The main entrance to Monte Hacho Fortress, a Byzantine fort which is now an off-limits military base in Ceuta.
Monte Hacho is a low mountain that overlooks the Spanish city of Ceuta, on the north coast of Africa. Monte Hacho is positioned on the Mediterranean coast at the Strait of Gibraltar opposite Gibraltar, and along with the Rock of Gibraltar is claimed by some to be one of the Pillars of Hercules.  According to the legend Hercules pushed apart the two mountains and created a link between the Mediterranean and the atlantic.
In classical civilization it was known as Mons Abila.  Monte Hacho is located on the Península de Almina and topped by a fort, the Fortaleza de Hacho, which was first built by the Byzantines, before being added to by the Arabs, Portuguese and Spanish.

Byzantine Morocco

The Romans evacuated most of Morocco at the end of the 3rd century AD, but unlike some other Roman cities, the Volubilis area was not abandoned. However, it appears to have been destroyed by an earthquake in the late fourth century AD.

It was reoccupied in the sixth century, when a small group of tombstones written in Latin shows the existence of a community that still dated its foundation by the year of the Roman province. Coins show that it was occupied under the Abbasids.



Most of the North African coast was later organised as the civilian Exarchate of Carthage, a special status in view of the outpost defense needs.  Mauretania Tingitana was effectively reduced to the city of Septum (Ceuta), was combined with the citadels of the Spanish coast (Spania) and the Balearic islands to form "Mauretania Secunda".

When the Umayyads conquered all of Northern Africa, replacing Christianity and Paganism with Islam, both Mauretanias were reunited as the province of al-Maghrib (Arabic for 'the West', and still the official name of the Sherifian kingdom of Morocco). This province also included over half of modern Algeria.

(Wikipedia - Ceuta)      (Byzantine Spania)      (Mauretania Tingitana)

The Eastern Roman Provinces of Spania and North Africa.
Aside from the southern parts of the provinces of Baetica and Carthaginiensis (the southern Levante), the Byzantines also held Ceuta in North Africa across from the Gibraltar and the Balearic Islands, which had fallen to them along with the rest of the Vandal kingdom.

Morocco Volubilis Roman ruins

The walls close to the top of Monte Hacho belong to Byzantine Monte Hacho Fortress, now an off-limits military base - Ceuta

'House of Orpheus’ marble mosaic floor detail, Volubilis

House of Orpheus, Volubilis

A mosaic on the floor of the ‘Knight’s house’ in Volubilis, near Meknes, Morocco. Bacchus finds Ariadne asleep, Theseus having wandered off.

 ‘Labours of Hercules house’ in Volubilis, near Meknes, Morocco.