home : index : picture archive : Libya : photos Marco Prins ©

Ghirza - South Cemetery

Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jona Lendering. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius.

North Cemetery (Gh129)

Mausoleum A
Mausoleum B
Mausoleum C
Mausoleum D-E
Mausoleum F
Other

South Cemetery (Gh128)

Mausoleum A
Mausoleum C
Mausoleum NN
Mausoleum G
Other

Other

Town (Gh127)
Gh 82

The photo above shows the two main surviving monuments of Ghirza's South Cemetery, which is about two kilometer west of the town itself. (In front is Mausoleum A, also seen on the picture to the left.) In Graeme Barker e.a., Farming the Desert. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey (1996), this cemetry is known as Gh128.

The South Cemetery contains the mausoleums of the other clan in Ghirza; because there are no inscriptions, their name is not known. Unlike the tombs on the North Cemetery, which looked like temples, the monuments on this cemetery are obelisk-shaped, a common form in the Tripolitania, inspired by Phoenician examples.

This monument must have looked like the ones at Sabratha, Wadi el-Amud, or Msletten, or the other Msletten. Again, we find the false door with architrave that was believed to give access to the afterlife (as those doors did in ancient Egypt), and again we find a combination of artistic traditions: the columns are Roman, but the needle shape of the monument is not.

Unfortunately, only the lowest of three tiers has survived, but the bases of the columns of the second tier, which probably had the same height as the lowest one, have survived, so we know that it consisted of a square core and four columns. On the highest level, a very steep pyramid must have pointed to heaven. It was at least fifteen meters high and must have been an important landmark for travelers arriving from the desert.

On top of the Corinthian columns was a frieze, which contained several of the usual motifs. On this photo, we can see portraits of a woman, a child, and a bearded man. To the right is an unidentified figure that appears to fly away (a soul?).

The flying figure again.

On the other side of the monument, we can see a woman with an amphora, a portrait, and two flowers.

There were several other mausoleums on Ghirza's southern cemetery, but most of them have no survived, as you can see on the next photo.

Below, however, you can see a splendid relief from Mausoleum C, which is now in Tripoli's Museum of the Jamahirjia. To the left, we can see four people plowing with dromedaries and one with a hoe; to the far left, a person has started to sow. The other relief shows a caravan of dromedaries, accompagnied by a man, a child, and a goat.

Here is a photo of another monument, which may be Mausoleum B, D, E, or F. It looks much like the middle tier of Mausoleum A, which can be seen in the distance: four round columns surrounding a square core.

Like Mausoleum G, now in Tripoli, the spandrels of this monument are decorated with vines and grapes and sun flowers. To the right, we can discern a date palm with a harvester climbing in it, and a nice bird.

No doubt, hunters and farmers were shown elsewhere on the monument.

An interesting aspect of the art of Ghirza is that we do not see figs and olives, or almonds and pulses, although we know that they were produced on the wadi's alluvium. Obviously, hunting and the cultivation of dates and cereals were more prestigious.

Finally, one of the fortified farms of along the upper Wadi Ghirza. In Graeme Barker e.a., Farming the Desert. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey (1996), this farm is known as Gh82. It measures about 17½ x 17½ m and is about an hour to the west. A satellite photo can be found here.

home : index : picture archive : Libya