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Applebaum's Hillside Stairs at Cyrene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2014

Donald White
Affiliation:
Mediterranean Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA
Philip Kenrick
Affiliation:
Abingdon, Oxford, UK

Abstract

A set of monumental stone stairs on the hillside south of Cyrene's Wadi Bel Gadir Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone were first detected by Shi'mon Applebaum during World War 2 on a now lost aerial photograph. Today his theory that the stairs connected a hilltop structure (now partially covered by a modern farm installation), with the still unidentified Demeter Sanctuary and that all three elements belonged to a Jewish temple complex is no longer sustainable, at least as far as the Demeter Sanctuary goes. But the stairs still exist, still unexcavated and largely unrecorded. What remains visible suggests that they may have been partially covered with a wooden roof and that they served as a ceremonial link between two important components of the suburban city analogous to that played by the porticoed Via Sacra leading to Cyrene's Sanctuary of Apollo. A plea is made for their excavation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 2011

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