kesar-el-ensara

Updated: June 14, 2025

Loose Phraseology in The Mediterranean. Harsh Hospitality of the Souafah, and Usurpation over their Oases by the French. Money disappearing from Ghadames. The Affair of Messrs. Silva and Levi, and their connexion with Ghadamsee Slave-Dealers. Visit, with his Excellency the Governor, the Ruins of Kesar-el-Ensara "the Castle of the Christians."

James Richardson - Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846

This evening was glad to go with the Rais to see the ruins of Kesar-El-Ensara, ‮قصر الانصرا‬, "The Castle of the Christians," although I had seen them often before. It was a great relief to me. The Rais put his head down to the vaults under the ruins to listen to the conversation of the Jenoun, or "Demons." His Excellency said he thought he heard the Demons talking.

James Richardson - Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846

The copyist of this inscription says, he affixed the Arabic letters in order that the Mussulman might compare them with the Christian letters and find out their sense, but he himself did not know what were their meaning. On returning from Kesar-El-Ensara, we looked around and were painfully impressed with the appalling barrenness of The Sahara.

James Richardson - Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846

This Kesar-El-Ensara, together with the bas-relief, and the Latin inscription, copied by a Moor from a tomb-stone, beginning with the words "Diis Manibus," are more than sufficient evidence to prove that Ghadames was "colonized," as it was called, by the Romans, and probably earlier by the Greeks and Carthaginians.

James Richardson - Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846