Chapter 9: The Upper Sofeggin Basin
See all inscriptions from the Upper Sofeggin Basin
The Wadi Sofeggin, the northernmost of the three great wadis which flow into the south-west angle of the gulf of Sirte, stretches over 300 km. from the source, a short distance only from the Djebel escarpment, south of Zintan, to the mouth in the coastal marshes. Throughout its length its northern tributaries drain the southern slopes of the Djebel.
In the first third of its course the Sofeggin runs through desolate, ill-watered country, with little trace of ancient habitation south of the foothills of the Djebel. Along it, however, ran an important caravan-trail, later a military road; and a second military road, also no doubt originally a caravan-route, strikes south from Garian, and ultimately from the coast at Oea, to meet the first at Mizda. The first of these roads provides the only example so far identified in Tripolitania of a typical desert limes road with watch-towers, of the type familiar from the Syrian frontier. Of Roman Mizda itself all trace has been overlaid by later settlement, but there can be little doubt that it was in antiquity, as now, an important centre for desert communications, both civil and military.