Mystery behind symbols on 2,000-year-old gate revealed

The 626 symbols discovered on the stone blocks of a monumental gate built more than 2,000 years ago in ancient Libya have shed new light on how construction projects were organized in antiquity.

TodayPress TV reports that Anna Kordas, an archaeologist from the University of Warsaw, studied the markings preserved on the Taucheira Gate in Ptolemais.

The study identified 27 different types of symbols. The researcher believes that the markings were not simply signatures left by stonemasons. They may have been part of a system used to organize the extraction of stone from quarries, its processing and transportation, as well as its proper placement within the structure.

Some of the markings consist of letters from the Greek alphabet — alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta and eta. The repetition of these symbols suggests that at least seven separate teams were involved in the construction.

Other markings are monograms made up of different letters. They may have identified specific workshops or wealthy individuals who financed the construction.

According to the researcher, the symbols may also provide information about how construction projects were financed in antiquity and how workers’ labor was recorded.

Turkan Iskandarli