Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward : $b in MDCCCXXI. and MDCCCXXII., comprehending an account of the Greater Syrtis and Cyrenaica; and of the ancient cities composing the pentapolisBeechey, Frederick William
History
Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward : $b in MDCCCXXI. and MDCCCXXII., comprehending an account of the Greater Syrtis and Cyrenaica; and of the ancient cities composing the pentapolis
Beechey, Frederick William
Sidra, Gulf of (Libya); Tripoli (Libya) -- Antiquities; Tripoli (Libya) -- Discovery and exploration
there are several interesting remains of ancient forts; some of
which are altogether on a different plan from those which have been
already described. They are built of large unequal-sized stones,
put together without any cement, and made to fit one into another in
the manner which has been called Cyclopian. Their form is a square,
with the angles rounded off, and some of them are filled up with
earth, well-beaten down, to within six or eight feet of the top;
the upper part of the wall being left as a parapet to the terrace,
which is formed by the earth heaped within it.
In the centre of the terrace we sometimes found the foundations of
building, as if chambers had been erected upon it; the roofs of
which, in that case, must have been higher than the outer walls
which formed the parapet; and a space seems always to have been
left between these central buildings and the parapet, in which the
garrison placed themselves when employed in defending the fort. An
opening like a window was observed in the parapet of one of the
Cyclopian castles at Ghimenes, which might have been used for
drawing up those who entered the fort, as there was no other mode
of entrance whatever. In fact there could scarcely have been any
communication between the upper and lower parts of these erections;
for the whole space between the walls was filled up with earth in the
manner already related, to within a few feet of the top. We noticed
near most of them a small rising ground, with one or two wells in
it, having remains of building about it; they were generally within
fifty yards of the fort, by which they were commanded.
The castles have most of them been surrounded with a trench, on the
outer side of which there is generally a low wall strongly built
with large stones. Some of the trenches which have been excavated
in the solid rock of the soil are of considerable depth and width;
and in one instance, occurring between Ghimenes and Bengazi, we
observed chambers excavated in the sides of the trench, as we find
to be the case in that which surrounds the second pyramid, and which
is equally formed in the rocky soil on which the building stands,
although of course on a much larger scale. The trench of the fort
here alluded to is about five-and-twenty feet in width, and its
depth about fifteen; the fort itself is an hundred and twenty-five
feet in length, and ninety in width, of a quadrangular form, and
in the centre of each of its sides is a quadrangular projection,
sloping outwards from the top, of twenty feet in length by twelve,
which appears to have served both as a tower and a buttress.
The measurements are here given in the rough, but they will be found
in detail by a reference to the ground-plan and elevation No. 9,
in the plate containing the details of some of the forts which have
been noticed in the course of the journey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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