This week the ADS would like to highlight a recently published archive from The British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS) – the digital archive of the Sabratha Excavations, 1949 -1951.
Sabratha, located on the coast of Libya, was a Phoenician trading post before becoming a prosperous area during the Roman period. Following the fall of Carthage, the city experienced a phase of expansion and rebuilding during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Despite a major earthquake in the mid-1st century AD, Sabratha continued to prosper, thanks to its important position as a port, exporting both olive oil and exotic goods from the Sahara across the Mediterranean. A series of monumental buildings were constructed during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, but further earthquakes in the 4th century caused serious damage to the city. Some rebuilding and revitalisation took place during the Byzantine period, but the city never truly recovered its former glory, and only a few centuries later had been completely abandoned.
Archaeological exploration of the area began in 1921 during the Italian colonial period, with British expeditions beginning after the end of the Second World War.
The excavation, directed by Dame Kathleen Kenyon and John-Ward Perkins, concerns several areas of Sabratha, from three seasons of fieldwork carried out in 1948, 1949, and 1951. The objective of this fieldwork was to study several buildings which had previously been exposed, with the intention to date these buildings. These areas included the Forum, the East Forum Temple, the Capitolium, the Basilica/Church and the Temple of Serapis, the Insulae, the Severan Monument, the Theatre, the Byzantine Defences and the Harbour.
Unfortunately, by the time of their death, Dame Kenyon’s in 1979 and Mr Ward-Perkins’ in 1981, the collection remained unpublished. The task of publishing Excavations at Sabratha 1948-1951, then fell to Philip Kenrick in 1986. As such the collection not only includes the initial data, but also later publications that use this data to reassess the history of Sabratha. Also present are notes and drawings relating to the Sabratha Finds Project, which was carried out at the University of Newcastle from 1986 to 1989.
This archive, published by the ADS in 2024, contains an extensive array of material related to this project that is available to download and reuse under a Creative Commons Licence. This collection includes digitised archival photographs, correspondence, notebooks, negatives, finds drawings, illustrations, and maps. The physical collection is now held in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, at the University of Leicester.
The download section of the archive includes:
- Correspondence
- Expedition Notebooks
- Expedition Notes
- John Ward Perkins Files
- Negatives
- Photographs
- Pottery and Finds Drawings
- Publication on Excavation
- Sabratha Finds Project
- Finds Records and Illustrations
- Maps and Plans
- The Hellenistic Black Glazed Wares by Molly Aylwin Cotton
Highlights
Much of this digital archive consists of photography, a key recording tool still commonly used today. More unique to this archive however, is the inclusion of the archaeologists themselves. Understandably for consistency and ease of future use, archaeological photography today is standardised in an effort to be as ‘objective’ as possible. Photos are staged, cropped, and any soil is swept away to create the illusion of an unaltered archaeological deposit. Archives such as the Sabratha Excavations therefore stand out, as photos of people and the process creates a fuller picture of the site. Whilst including photos of a tea break in an archive may sound unnecessary, not only does it serve as a reminder of the human effort in archaeology, it also allows for a preservation of the history of the discipline.
Photographs such as those taken at Sabratha often show more than they were intended to capture. For example this photo below may have been captured intending to show the landscape, however is now archived as ‘Negative of men walking towards the Forum at Sabratha’. As time has gone by the focus of the photo has changed as our interest as archaeologists extends beyond the landscape, to the people, community, and politics captured in that moment in time. These unexpected outcomes of past data are reminders of why digital and open access repositories such as the ADS are important, as they allow for the exploration of narratives they may not have originally intended to be told.
This archive is available from the link below:
The British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS) (2024) Digital Archive from Sabratha Excavations: The Kathleen Kenyon and John Ward-Perkins Collection, 1948-1951 [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service [distributor] https://doi.org/10.5284/1122174
To find out more about The British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies please visit: https://www.bilnas.org/resources/archive/
