Mapping Ancient Libya

Abstract

Between 1946 and 1951 Richard Goodchild carried out the fieldwork that was to result in a seminal series of articles and publications on the ancient settlements of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (Goodchild 1948; 1949a/b; 1950a/b/c/d; 1951a/b/c; 1952a/b/c; 1953; 1954c; 1971; 1976; Goodchild and Ward-Perkins 1953; Ward-Perkins and Goodchild 1949; 1953). The cartographic results appeared in 1954 as two splendid sheets in the ill-fated Tabula Imperii Romani (TIR) series at a scale of 1:1,000,000 (Goodchild 1954a/b). These twenty-two publications remain of fundamental importance to our understanding of the ancient topography of Libya.Goodchild's map can with hindsight be seen as one of the few successes of the ill-fated TIR project. The TIR initiative aimed to produce 58 maps covering the Roman world, but huge problems have beset it all along and only 11 maps have ever appeared in definitive form. Although work continues in some areas, it must be considered improbable that this series will ever be completed (see Talbert 1992 for a thorough review of the history of the TIR).The fact that it is now nearly 40 years since the compilation of Goodchild's two TER sheets for Libya is probably reason enough for resuming his interest in mapping ancient Libya. Much has happened in the interim to refine our knowledge of both urban and rural settlement, as a glance at the relevant volumes of Libya Antiqua, Libyan Studies and Quaderni di Archeologia delta Libia will reveal. For the study of the ancient geography and toponomy of Cyrenaica, the studies by Stucchi (1975) and Laronde (1987) are of particular importance. In addition to map corrections necessitated by the new information and perspectives, one may cite the inconvenience caused by the incompleteness of the TIR coverage to the south, east and west of the Leptis Magna and Cyrene sheets. For instance, how can we hope to understand the settlement geography of Roman Tripolitania without reference to Tunisian western Tripolitania or to the desert tribes (Phazanii, Garamantes etc)?