Musluvium
Statio 11 on the Piazzale delle Corporazioni has a single line of text above two tondos with a head (personifications of Summer and Winter), an amorino on a dolphin, and two dolphins. The mutilated text must have been NAVICVLARI MVSLV(V)ITANI HIC. We are dealing with Musluvium in Algeria.
Statio 11 on the Piazzale delle Corporazioni. Photo: Gerard Huissen.In the Itinerarium Antonini the place is called Muslubio, on the Tabula Peutingeriana Muslubio Horreta, and in the Ravenna Cosmography Muslubion Orea. Horreta and Orea are surely to be understood as Horrea. Apparently there were important warehouses here.
Tabula Peutingeriana: to the left Saldas Colonia, to the right Muslubio Horreta.
See also the atlas of Samuel Butler from 1907 and feuille 7 of the atlas of Stéphane Gsell.Hardly anything is known and has been published about Musluvium. Our main source is a short description by Jean-Pierre Laporte from 2017. It was a harbour on the coast of Algeria, 25 kilometers to the east of Roman Saldae (modern Béjaïa. formerly Bougie), three kilometers to the south-east of Cape Aokas. It was located on a shallow bay that is now completely filled by silt adduced by the Oued Agrioun, seven kilometers to the east. The locality is called Sidi Rehane / Andrièche.
The bay filled by the Oued Agrioun. The vertical blue line to the east of Aokas is the Oued Side Rehane.
Andrièche is the south-east corner of Aokas, a bit to the west.In antiquity the sea washed against the mountains. The city was on either side of a promontory. The harbour depended on a hinterland around Sitifis. That city was originally part of Mauretania Caesariensis. After reforms by Diocletian it became the capital of Mauretania Sitifensis.
Literature:
- S. Gsell, Atlas archéologique de l'Algerie, texte, Alger-Paris 1911, feuille 7, 57.
- J.-P. Laporte, "Les amphores de Tubusuctu et l'huile de Maurétanie césarienne", Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, NS 12-14 (1976-1978), 131-157.
- J.-P. Laporte, "De Cissi à Choba: ports antiques de Kabylie", Dellys, une ville des patrimoines, 2017, 17-40.
