Plate 4. Wadi drain and S28 bridge abutment cleared by Ghislanzoni from the southeast. Courtesy of the Department of Antiquities.
S28 Bridge Abutment (Pl. 4)
The wadi drain north of the west end of the Middle Sanctuary spreads to a width of more than 14 m. Its north or city side embankment61 is faced with a 10.25 m. wide ashlar masonry retaining wall (S28), built of carefully prepared limestone headers and stretchers that average ca.1.10 long by 0.60 m. deep; their heights vary from ca. 0.30 to 0.40 m.62 A maximum of twelve courses survive intact, with stones from a possible thirteenth course lying toppled to their rear. The rise in the soil lying behind S28 indicates that its original elevation might have extended up another six courses. A Department of Antiquities photograph (Pl. 4) dating from the 1915 work of Ghislanzoni63 indicates that S28’s east wall returned at least 4 m. into the wadi bank; much of the return is covered over today with fallen soil and vegetation.
From its alignment along the wadi bank and position diagonally opposite the northwest corner of the Middle Sanctuary, it appears likely that S28 served as part of a bridge. Ghislanzoni’s clearance of its southern face is, however, unpublished, and no excavated evidence is available for its date. Its block dimensions are, however, strikingly close to those of the “Thirty-two Centimeter Wall” (T10) erected across the eastern half of the Middle Sanctuary in the late 1st century B.C. It therefore seems at least possible that the S28 abutment belongs to approximately the same time.
If that is the case, then the W14 wall, which today survives to a height of eight courses or ca. 3.50 m. across the wadi drain, is probably later and not associated with the bridge since W14’s block dimensions differ from those of S28, particularly in regard to block height.64 More significantly, S28’s west end overshoots the corresponding corner of S27 by ca. 3.50 m., which surely would have created gratuitous problems in decking over any timber bridgework between abutments. In addition, if S28 had belonged to the same construction phase as W14, it should have been laid out parallel as well as directly opposite W14. Instead, the alignment of the two elements diverges by approximately 22°. On the other hand, it has been observed already how S28 does lie more or less parallel to the line of the early Imperial T11/T12 facing of the Middle Sanctuary as well as sharing the dimensions of T10. For these various reasons, it seems likely that S28 is all that survives of a bridge arrangement connecting the lowest level of the sanctuary with the north slope of Wadi Bel Gadir before the post-Jewish Rebellion construction of the Lower Sanctuary’s northwest corner that seems effectively to block passage across the wadi at this point. If this hypothesis is correct, whatever parts of the original southern bridge abutment not dismantled at the time of the construction of S27 must be trapped in the fabric of its front wall, a proposition that can be tested only by more thoroughly excavating Wall W14.
Commentary
So far as I know, the ancient bridges scattered throughout the settled region of the Cyrenaican plateau have yet to be surveyed and properly studied. A good place to start might be with the gasr system, since the El-Heneia fortress has, for one, left rather well preserved evidence for a wooden bridge supported on twin stone arches.65 Another productive area for study would be the region’s aqueducts whose bridging devices already have been worked on at Ptolemais.66 Most of the major Pentapolis settlements must have used bridges as part of their extramural road systems, but evidence for such appears to be lacking in the case of every city with the exception of, once again, Ptolemais.67 These few examples indicate that cut-stone and concrete vaulted bridge abutments and decks, stone support piers or stanchions, and timber decking were all in general use by Roman times. If piers and timber decking were used in the case of the present sanctuary as seems likely, weathering and flooding have long since destroyed any trace of their previous existence.
Middle Sanctuary Alterations and Renovations
Terrace Walls T10, T11, and T12 68
The early Imperial period called for the first renovations to the forward, north wall of the Middle Sanctuary peribolos recorded since later Archaic times. While the massive T20 facing added after the A.D. 115 Jewish Rebellion conceals whatever early Imperial modifications were carried out on the middle stretch of the late Archaic T3-T4 pseudoisodomic peribolos, the remainder of the 1st century A.D. additions are fairly well known, either from excavated tests carried out on their backs (T10) or because their northern, outer faces remain exposed for direct inspection (T10 in part, T11 and T12 in their entirety).
Wall T10
The eastern line of the wall labeled T10 and otherwise known as the “Thirty-two Centimeter Wall” is restored supporting the entire eastern half of the Middle Sanctuary (Fig. 1). Actual firsthand observation of its elevation, however, is limited to where the top courses of its southern face are visible in grid squares G10, G11, and G13,69 as well as to the interior of the later Imperial vault V1/V2, which provides a clear view of both its northern face and cross-section.70 Where observable, the masonry consists of precisely shaped ashlars averaging 0.95/1.00 by 0.50 by 0.32 m., and it is indeed the unusual regularity of its course heights that gave rise to T10’s being locally nicknamed the “Thirty-two Centimeter Wall.” The resulting block height-to-length ratio works out to 1:3 to 1:3.3 Its courses rise in alternating headers and stretchers with apparently no additional backing. Thus, the total wall thickness seems to be roughly a meter.
Context and Date of Wall T10, Its Early Imperial Backfill
The superficial clearing operations carried out on the south face of the upper courses of T10 in grid squares G10 and G11 provided no chronological information for the wall’s construction date. The University of Pennsylvania Museum expedition, however, encountered a massive backfill south of T10’s western end in grid square G13.71 The fill’s physical configuration and general contents have been described previously,72 and the reader already will be aware that the fill’s presence is tied to the activities of the builders of the T10 wall. To judge from the two tests opened against T0’s inner face in G13,73 the bedrock slope against which the wall builders erected their footings sloped back at a steep angle to create an irregular V-shaped gap between wall and wadi shoulder. After the line of T10 had been set in place, the gap was backfilled with a deep mixture of earth, broken building debris, and massive quantities of discarded artifacts (G13/F13, St. 2).74 As has been previously stated, the overwhelming majority of the dateable artifacts were manufactured during the 6th and 5th century B.C. and were presumably stored in underground dumps spread throughout