Novar
The colonial village destroyed all trace of the ancient settlement, which was fairly large. The name of this city is known only from incomplete inscriptions. It was situated in the rich valley of the Oued el Kebir (ancient Ampsaga) in Mauretania, occupying a flat area near a zone of springs.
Numerous Christian inscriptions of the 4th c. make it likely that there was a community from the 3d c. on. Possibly a bishop from the town attended the synod of Carthage in 256.
The site is notable for the many stelae to Saturn found there. Their quality is consistent. The craftsmen used a suitable fine-grained limestone, and increasingly original forms during the course of the artistic evolution of such stelae in the 2d, 3d, and (no doubt) beginning of the 4th c. These stelae belong to a group well represented on the sites of Cuicul, Mopth [---], and Sétif and are distinct from the products of other Numidian and Mauretanian workshops. Some of these stones are still in the village; others have been taken to the Algiers Museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHYS. Gsell, Atlas archéologique de l'Algérie (1911) 16, no. 216; M. Leglay, Saturne africain, Monuments (1966) II 242-51.
P.-A. FÉVRIER