‘Notes from Libya’ is a new regular feature of Libyan Studies following the reports of the Society's Head of Mission. These reports were previously concerned with the organisation of fieldwork and administrative matters connected to obtaining permissions, visas and so on, and were recorded in the minutes of the Council meetings. However, they have recently taken on a new form, outlining the alarming developments in Libya, largely focusing on its heritage but also on the political and economic situation, which impacts on the management of Libya's ancient monuments and artefacts. The importance and historical interest of these reports now, however, merits a wider audience and a more formal record, so these accounts are now published in Libyan Studies.

A group of handmade pottery from the Eastern Marmarica (north-west Egypt) can be associated with the indigenous population of the region, subsumed as nomadic Libyans. A discussion of its type and fabric – mainly shell-tempered – leads to questions about its chronology as well as the ethnic and cultural background of the producers and users of these wares. Stratified finds and a diligent assessment of the reliability of associated pottery from surface find-spots will seek to fix the chronology of Northern Libyan Desert Ware (NLDW).

This paper updates the present knowledge of ceramic productions in the Western Mediterranean in the early Middle Ages through the example of al-Andalus. The study of pottery production is a key element for recognizing the process of Islamization, the formation of al-Andalus, and the important social and economic changes that took placed in the Mediterranean between the seventh and ninth centuries. From a historical point of view, the early Middle Ages is a transcendental moment of change: patterns and socioeconomic models of the ancient world began to fade, and the evolution towards the development of feudal societies and, in parallel, the emergence of Islamic culture started. In the Iberian Peninsula, the arrival of the Arab-Berber army in AD 711 and its rapid conquest over a few years generated a process of social change know today as Islamization, which encompasses two centuries (eighth and ninth), and culminates in the tenth century with the standardization of a culture that is recognized from that moment on as Islamic culture. In this paper, the central elements of ceramic production in early al-Andalus are analysed, including the coexistence of diverse manufacturing techniques, the gradual disappearance of standardized productions, regionalization of production centres, and the incorporation of new forms and techniques such as glaze.

In an earlier paper, we argued that medic pasture was probably an important component of the ancient farming regime in Libya. The success of modern experiments which have reintroduced medicago pasture was also described.

In this paper, the analysis is taken further and the results of different types of crop rotation are compared. The Waite experiment in Australia has shown that the most intensive systems of cereal cultivation are not necessarily the most productive, when soil exhaustion and long term decline in yields are taken into account. In fact, the highest profits and best returns of both cereals and livestock are obtained from low intensity systems.

It is possible that increased emphasis on cereal production in the Roman period may have led to a diminuation of the medic pasture, to the exhaustion of the soils and falling yields. By its own initial success, Romano-Libyan agriculture may have contributed to its own decline.

In Autumn 2000, the University of Liverpool continued its researches into the Ramesses II fortress at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, some 25 km west of Marsa Matruh. During this season, the area around the wadis that run towards Ras Abu Laho, 3 km to the west of Umm el-Rakham, was explored. Particular attention was paid to the spurs and knolls that presented a commanding view of the wadi and surrounding area or the coast, in the hope of finding possible New Kingdom patrol routes in association with the fort.

This paper presents more evidence of local ceramic manufacture activity in the region. Two local fabrics, Marmaric fabrics 1 and 2, are identified and their shapes and distribution are discussed. They are dated to the New Kingdom, more or less contemporary with the fortress at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, since they occur with Nile valley fabrics. It is suggested that they were either made by the local Libyan population, or by the occupants of the fortress for their own use.

The decorative corpus of another local fabric, Shell Tempered ware, is also briefly sketched, and its post-New Kingdom date reconfirmed.

This article examines the particularities of Ptolemaic power outside Egypt through the religious activities of the Ptolemies in Cyrenaica. Since evidence is scarce on the direct administration of this Ptolemaic possession between 321 and 96 BC, the study of the royal cult and the relations between the Ptolemies and traditional cults of the city provides valuable insight on the nature of the dialogue between the king and the cities. It is clear from the available evidence that cult structures already existing in Egypt strongly included Cyrenaica in the Ptolemaic space. But the participation of the city in the royal cult and the flexibility of the royal language of power show that imperialistic views fail to fully explain both the longevity of Ptolemaic power in Cyrenaica and the necessity for the Ptolemies to legitimise their power even in a territory under direct administration.

Short seasons of excavation between 1985 and 1992 were conducted under the supervision of the writer in an open and almost featureless area near the center of the walled city of Tocra. The excavations were part of the Garyunis (Benghazi) University training program, arranged by the Department of Archaeology for undergraduate students.

The excavation uncovered the remains of seven buildings and produced a vast quantity of stratified material. Four periods of occupation, Hellenistic, Roman (early and late), Byzantine and Islamic, were encountered within the excavated area.

The uppermost levels of all buildings excavated are to be dated mainly in the Byzantine period, but show some structural additions and minor modifications probably undertaken during the Islamic period. The floor level of each building produced a large quantity of material which is confidently referred to the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The vast majority of the dateable finds consisted of coarse pottery, including flat-based jugs, some of which were nearly complete, a very distinctive type of cooking ware with a row of finger indentations on the top of the lug, pieces of broken amphorae, mostly necks, bases and handles; one of these handles is stamped with a bust of a Byzantine emperor in a style exactly similar to that of busts on the obverse of Byzantine coins. The legend, however, is not legible (Fig. 13a). Among the finds were also a large quantity of Byzantine lamps, of which more than thirty are either complete or nearly complete, and many Byzantine coins, of which a high proportion belongs to the reign of Heraclius (AD 610–641).

The purpose of this paper is to study one of the most regrettable problems associated with rapid urban growth – the deterioration and destruction of the fabric of the historic medina. It is also the aim, to highlight the importance of our architectural heritage and to suggest the need for a national cultural policy to conserve the urban heritage of the country. Three small towns from Libya were chosen as case studies.

A reappraisal of the Roman period ruins at Ain Wif has been made following the identification there of traces of defensive walls. These walls are interpreted as being the robbed-out remains of a Roman fortlet and possibly also a tort on the same site. Two phases of military occupation were also evident in modern drain trenches being cut across the site and are attested epigraphically for the military bath-house by the spring. Ceramic evidence from the site suggests that the initial phase lies within the second century, whilst the Severan occupation, known from an inscription to begin early in the third century, represents a second phase. The previous view of the site as an undefended road-station, with a military presence only under the Severan emperors is no longer tenable. Moreover, the new evidence indicates that there was some measure of military organisation in the hinterland of the Emporia prior to the accession of Septimius Severus at the very end of the second century AD. The importance of the site also lies in its large civilian and indigenous population who continued to occupy the site long after the military had departed.

IRT 480, dated by reference to the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius in the years between A.D. 408 and 423, honours Flavious Ortygius, v(ir) c(larissimus) et sp(ectabilis) com(es) et dux p(rovinciae) T(ripolitanae), for achievements connected with the Austuriani which I had failed to decipher when IRT was published. Although it adds disappointingly little to knowledge, it seems worth recording a reading made in 1975 when I saw the stone in a particularly good cross light.

It was, of course, already deducible that the Austuriani had not ceased to raid Tripolitania after the notorious occasions in 363–5 which led to the scandal of Count Romanus; and Professor Chastagnol has recently associated the titles of officials in the province in the late Fourth and early Fifth centuries (including that of Ortygius) with a series of experiments to deal with the military problem they created. A particularly bad raid seems to be implied by the inscription of Ortygius.

The background to the Society's involvement with the part of the site of Ptolemais known as the North-East Quadrant has been outlined in a previous report in this Journal. (Annual Report of the Society for Libyan Studies 1977–78)

Following a short two week season in 1978, under the overall direction of J. B. Ward-Perkins, to assess the problems of the site, the Society sent out an expanded team over a period of six weeks in May and June 1979 to commence, inter alia, a programme of excavation in the North-East Quadrant. It did not prove possible to complete the programme in 1979 and it was expected that a further, and probably final, season's work would take place in August and September 1980. In the event, however, this has not proved possible, but it is hoped that the work on site can be concluded in 1981. Meanwhile this short interim report on the results of the 1979 excavations is presented to the Society.

While the main excavation effort was concentrated in the North-East Quadrant a number of sondages were made in the House of the Triapsidal Hall in an attempt to establish the date of the original building as well as that of the East Avenue (and thus that of the city's Hellenistic street grid) onto which it fronts. A trench 1.5m. wide and 4.0m. long was put down through the central room of the western range between the peristyle and the street wall. This revealed two surviving floor levels of which the upper retained traces of mosaic while the lower, which proved to be the original floor level, was of smooth plaster. The footings of the house's west wall were also revealed, set into the natural sub-soil. These levels produced a quantity of fine ware sherds which, when studied, should yield a date for the construction of the original building, as well as, by implication, the laying down of the Hellenistic street grid.

Over the course of the last nine years, a large number of documents have come to light that chronicle more fully American interest in Cyrenaica in the 1880s and in the first two decades of this century. The documents mainly pertain to the 1910–1911 archaeological excavation of Cyrene by Richard Norton on behalf of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Archaeological Institute of America, during the course of which Herbert Fletcher DeCou, staff epigrapher, was fatally shot. But the material also refers to hitherto unnoticed American visits to Cyrenaica for archaeological purposes in 1883 and 1887, as well as the first official American expedition in the spring of 1909. While some of these papers are already well known and also have been the source of several studies regarding the murder of DeCou, most of the material has remained largely unexplored by scholars interested in Cyrenaica. For this reason they are presented here with the expectation that future articles on specific aspects of the Cyrene papers will be forthcoming shortly.

The 1971 Expedition was in the field for almost a month over Easter, thanks to the continued kindness and good will of the Libyan Department of Antiquities, and further generous financial support from the British Academy, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, the Society for Libyan Studies and the University of Newcastle.

The site of Saniat Gebril lies 300 yards east of the abandoned mud-brick town of Germa. Trial trenching (1965) and surface sherding had shown that at least 5 acres of compact settlement existed there, with the strong likelihood that more sparsely-placed buildings stretched as far as Germa. From the previous work it was thought that the main settlement consisted of a series of smallish mud-brick buildings, occupied from the late-first century A.D. until the early-third century, when the site was abandoned and not subsequently re-occupied.

This paper reports on the first season of a new project at Euesperides (Benghazi) aimed at studying the urban development and economy of the city. Two area excavations were started, the first on the site of early Hellenistic pebble and tessellated mosaics discovered in 1998, and the second in what appears to be an area of houses and workshops built against the city wall on the east side of the mound of Sidi Abeid. Geophysical survey and surface prospection was also undertaken; it appears that the lower-lying extension to the city was much larger than previously thought, and several modifications are necessary to previously published plans of the site. Much of the lower city is covered with large spreads of deliberately crushed shells of Murex trunculus, indicating the production of purple dye on a significant scale. Other evidence of urban production was also recovered, notably metal-working, while study of the ceramic assemblage shows widespread trading connections, with significant imports of coarsewares besides the expected fineware and amphora imports.

This note is a sequel to an earlier article concerning a tomb discovered at Benghazi in 1860 by F. H. Crowe. Further papers relating to the discovery (including a plan of the tomb) have come to light and are published here. Additional comments can also now be advanced on some of the artifacts found in the tomb.

In October 1994, a small Anglo-Libyan team carried out a short field season on the site of Euesperides in the suburbs of Benghazi. The work was intended as the prelude to the renewal of excavation and more detailed investigation of this important Greco-Libyan town of the sixth to third century BC. Through selective recording of trenches dug recently by the Department of Antiquties on the north side of the site and of exposed sections in a redevelopment site close by, some important data on the nature of activity in this area has been gained. Palaeobotanical samples from these trenches have also yielded significant new information. In addition, surface collection of artefacts from the hill of Sidi Abeid and the northern part of the site will provide an opportunity to assess the phasing and zoning of Euesperides. Finally, a new theodolite survey of the site in its modern urban context demonstrates all too clearly the degradation of the ancient city in the face of intense modern development since the 1950s.

The second season of fieldwork on the historic settlement in the Wadi ash-Shati and the Dawada lake villages was undertaken in January 2008, completing the first stage of survey began during the Desert Migration Project 2007. The fieldwork combined geomorphological observations with the recording of historic settlement to understand how hydrology has influenced human management of the wadi in the past. A number of major Garamantian sites were located in the western Zallaf, in Wadi Dabdab and near the modern settlement of Birgin. Visits were also made to sites of pre-Garamantian and Islamic date, and a preliminary survey of the Dawada village of Gabr’Awn completed. While many of the sites recorded in the Wadi ash-Shati are extremely well-preserved, a number of sites appear threatened, while others have already been extensively damaged.

This paper reports the preliminary results from two short seasons of fieldwork that the Tunisian–British Bulla Regia Archaeological Report was able to undertake in September 2016 and 2017. In 2016, the work focused on a geophysical survey of the western cemetery and revealed a complex landscape of funerary enclosures and mausolea outside the protected boundaries of the site, likely to be of Roman date. In 2017, photogrammetric techniques were used to record and plan a Late Antique church and cemetery that was discovered during a rescue excavation in 2010. The church consists of three naves and a series of funerary annexes, which contained burials covered by mosaic or stone epitaphs, including those marking the graves of two bishops and two priests. The church is surrounded by an extensive cemetery with a variety of different tomb types, such as mosaic caissons and simple stepped masonry tombs. The mosaics, inscriptions and finds (ceramics, glass, coins) support a fourth to sixth/seventh century date for the church and cemetery.

This paper reports on the fifth season of fieldwork for the Palaeoanthropology part of the Desert Migrations Project. Previous seasons established an extensive archaeological map based on a wide survey of the rich record along the edges of the Ubari Sand Sea, a small area of the Messak Settafet, the Wadi al-Ajal, the Wadi ash-Shati and the Wadi Barjuj. These surveys, complemented with small excavations, demonstrated a deep prehistory to the Fazzan, with Mode 1 technologies, Acheulean, Mode 3 (classic Levallois, large blade technologies, and Aterian), and Late Stone Age and Neolithic assemblages, some with pottery and grinding stones. The focus of the 2011 season was the Wadi Barjuj. This is an extensive wadi system to the South of the Messak, running along the northern edge of the Murzuq Sand Sea, and draining towards the east. Geomorphologically, it comprises old channel cut and fill gravels, usually finely graded, with areas of ancient lacustrine duricrusts, some of which are elevated significantly above the landscape. Surveys, complementing those of 2008, revealed a particularly rich and extensive Holocene series of sites, with microliths, pottery and grinding stones. These sites indicate a dense early Holocene occupation which seems associated with both hunter-gatherers and pastoralists. In addition, there was a low frequency of MSA lithics (compared to other survey areas), although one extremely rich site (BJJ4) had a very large number of water-worn, highly diagnostic small bifaces, characteristics of some Africa MSA traditions. Acheulean was relatively rare. One restricted locality (BJJ6) provided further evidence for a Mode 1 presence in the region, similar to that reported earlier from the Messak and Wadi ash-Shati (Mirazón Lahr et al. 2009, 2010). The context for the finds suggests that at various points during the Pleistocene the Wadi Barjuj was a low lying, swampy and/or lacustrine region, possibly riverine at times, and attractive to hominin populations because of its relatively rich resource base. This paper describes the localities and finds underpinning these conclusions.

S64 is an extraordinary tomb. Its well-preserved isodomic façade leads to an antechamber decorated with wall paintings recalling what is usually labelled as ‘Pompeian Second Style’, a unique example in Cyrenaica thus far. This article gives a brief insight on this tomb, its wall paintings and a short discussion of their importance in the wider context of local and foreign monumental funerary customs. This tomb suggests a ritual complexity with few comparisons in Cyrene, but it is also important for the history of the Hellenistic and Roman painted architectural styles.