The basilicas at Ptolemais : a historian's commentary on the results of archaeological exploration

Abstract

It is well to begin by telling what subjects are not addressed in this study: I shall not discuss the architecture of the basilicas at Ptolemais or their decoration; I do not feel competent on this matter. I shall focus instead on what has remained outside the scope of the researches done by my colleagues of the Polish archaeological mission and by my predecessors who worked on the history of Christian architecture. 1 I shall study the character and pastoral functions of the basilicas of Ptolemais. 2 Unfortunately, Iam not in a position (and this is thesecond limitation of my study) to refine their dating. We know only, and only based on a general understanding of the history of Cyrenaica, that they go back to the period from the mid-5th to the mid- -7th c. and this unfortunately has to suffice. The dating of churches in other towns of Cyrenaica is equally imprecise, because suitable sources are lacking. After the death of Synesius (413), when we can no longer rely on his correspondence, we have neither good literary sources nor sufficiently abundant inscriptions. The form of the basilicas themselves affords no grounds for their accurate dating, and we are left to draw our conclusions from architectonic details (the form of the column capitals, shafts, cancelli, etc.), which are not a reliable source in themselves either. Even mosaics are of little use for dating the buildings. The date when a church was constructed may be different from the date when the mosaic was laid, as Noël duval notes in his article, clever and brimming with polemic irony and gusto. 3 If we were to excavate the area of the churches at Ptolemais, we could make use of data from ceramology; non-invasive investigation alone does not offer any hints of use in absolute dating.