Les monuments à auges en Cyrénaïque (Ptolémaïs et Cyrène)

Stone installations referred to as “troughs” can be found in four Late Antique houses at Ptolemais and Cyrene. These large blocks of stone with a hollow carved in one of the longer sides, which is facing up, find numerous parallels in buildings of public, sacral and private character, both pagan and Christian, known from North Africa. Despite a rich topic literature, the function of these blocks remains mostly unexplained. At Ptolemais “troughs” have been recorded in the so-called House of Paulos, at Cyrene in the anonymous house by the Central Basilica, in the House of Hesychius and the so-called House of the Doric Peristyle. In all cases, the small size of the rooms or the presence of steps in the entrance preclude their use as actual horse troughs. Four such “troughs” standing in a small unit by the courtyard of the Asclepios cult complex at El-Bayda (ancient Balagrae), still active in the second half of the 4th century, are helpful in assigning a function to these installations. It is commonly known that those arriving in the sanctuary in search of a cure for their ailments were obliged to make offerings in kind to the deity they were imploring. Therefore, the “troughs” in the house of Paulos, who was a high-ranking imperial official, at Ptolemais and in the three houses at Cyrene, including that of the Libyarch Hesychius, could have served a similar purpose, as collecting points for “taxes in kind”, which would subsequently be transferred to Constantinople.