This paper examines the intentions, successes and failures of remarkable Romano-Libyan floodwater farmers who settled the arid Libyan pre-desert and used complexes of walls to manage the occasional floodwater as well as the desert's soils, sediments and biota. The paper presents and analyses a near ‘total’ data-set on the determinable locational properties of these ancient walls within one wadi — the 10 km long Wadi Umm el-Kharab. The organisation of these wall systems is shown to alter along the wadi according to changes in topographic, geomorphic and hydrological factors, as well as in relation to what are regarded in this paper as design and settlement factors. The organisation of the walls changes at confluences and distinctive topographic features. An analysis of the shape of enclosed areas indicates that the wadi can be divided into three broad sectors, each of which can be identified by differences in the shapes of the areas enclosed by walls. The enclosed shapes, as well as the general properties of the walls themselves do not vary in any simple linear manner along the wadi. Precise field mapping, as well as statistical displays of wall-related data, indicate the presence of similar ‘gaps’ in both the frequencies of settlement and of walls along the wadi. These gaps are, in part, explicable as the secondary consequences of hypothesised past flood-management problems associated with the confluences within the wadi system. They are also interpreted in this paper as some type of land use or other territorial ‘break’ created between the ancient community groups who occupied the wadi. This study has demonstrated the existence of distinct ‘preferences’ in the distances between walls, the areas enclosed between walls, and the thicknesses of walls. Overall, the types of organisation, and presumed functions of walls in this wadi are similar to those established from elsewhere in the Libyan pre-desert, but the balance is different in the Wadi Umm el-Kharab. The emphasis of wall-design in the Wadi Umm el-Kharab appeared to be upon the containment and management of floodwater, rather than the maximisation of the input of waters to the wadi floor, as deduced elsewhere. The long-term robustness and the environmental sophistication of these wall-systems are evident.

As a contribution to the Society for Libyan Studies’ 50th anniversary, the paper discusses three projects in which the author has been involved, with a focus on their different contributions to our understanding of Libya's landscape prehistory and history. The deep stratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave in three projects are described in chronological order, but they contribute in reverse order to our understanding of how Libyans have changed and been changed by their landscapes. The deep stratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica represents an intermittent history of landscape use, and the way people dealt with climate change impacts, from some 150,000 years ago to the Graeco-Roman period. The faunal assemblage from Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi, provides insights into how Graeco-Roman city-dwellers interacted with the people of the countryside. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey changes the perspective, showing how tribal people in the pre-desert were drawn into the ambit of the coastal cities and the economy of imperial Rome, before returning to semi-mobile pastoral/arable lifeways not so dissimilar to the lives of many Libyans before the oil revolution. The principal linking finding is that there are no simple stories from the past in terms of people's relations to their landscape: the mix of structure and agency embodied in the archaeological record can be a record of failures, misguided decisions, bad luck etc. as much as of successful responses and adaptations to opportunities and challenges.

One of the over-riding factors ensuring the ease of Greek and Hellenistic civilisations' expansion throughout the Mediterranean basin, and the geographical factor which lent a cohesive potential to the Roman world was the Mediterranean Sea itself. During the 7th century B.C. it was the sea which provided outward access for the Greek colonial migration, and then later ensured communication between colony and mother city. The great weight which Greek colonists attached to securing an easy access to their maritime communication lines was a major consideration in determining the siting of the colonial cities. The increasing size of ships during the 5th–3rd centuries B. C. coupled with the vastly increased volume of maritime trade which characterised the Hellenistic period were major stimuli to the artificial development of those natural harbours on which the colonial cities were based.

Any study of classical harbours in Cyrenaica must begin with an examination of the literary sources of which two are particularly relevant. They are; the Stadiasmus Maris Magni (1), and Herodotus' account of the original Greek colonisation of Cyrenaica from the island of Thera (2). The Stadiasmus is a document to which at present no precise date can be assigned, but in its final form it is probably not later than the end of the 2nd century A. D., and it would seem to be a palimpsest. The Stadiasmus lists the harbours along the entire North African Coast from Alexandria to Tunis, and, being written by seamen for the guidance of seamen it is the equivalent of the modern Admiralty Pilot. The list of harbours which it provides indicates that there was a very strictly graded hierarchy of natural harbour types, for no less than six different nouns are used to describe harbour entities according to their geographical qualities. In the Cyrenaican section of the Stadiasmus nine harbours are listed which can be divided into three distinct groups according to the words used to describe them. The three groups are headed by the terms Euphormos, Hormos and Panormos in ascending order of merit, and each denotes a very specific type of natural harbour. The root word, Hormos, meaning a tore or collar, is used in a maritime context from the earliest literary times, and is so used by Homer. The various prefixes which are attached to the word, Euph and Pan, denote natural harbour types which either excel or in some way fail to match the norm, the Hormos. In its sense of ‘collar’ the word conveys a notion of the configuration of the ideal harbour, i.e. a land-locked bay to provide shelter for shipping with access to the sea.

Since 1995 the Archaeological Mission to Libya of Roma Tre University has carried out several surveys in the territory and suburbs of Lepcis Magna. Besides the survey of the archaeological and historical sites, the Roma Tre team has also had the opportunity to observe and record the development of the landscape through periods of war and peace.

In this article, the issues related to the cultural heritage in the area of the modern city of Khoms and in the Lepcis hinterland are analysed and particular consideration is given to the damage and destruction that has occurred since the Italian occupation (1911) until the present day. The Lepcitanian/Khoms territory is an interesting case study in which the cultural heritage has been, and still is, at risk due to ‘civilian’ and ‘conflict’ causes. Besides the damage that occurred during the Italo-Turkish War and – to a minor extent – during WWII, the main damage seems to have occurred in the last sixty years due to the expansion of Khoms and to the ongoing unstable political situation in which the lack of central government control is playing an important role. In particular, since 2011, Islamic fundamentalists have demolished in these areas several ancient marabouts, destroying one of the most characteristic aspects of the Tripolitanian/Libyan cultural landscape.

The paper presents first results of a joint German–Tunisian research project in Carthage, Tunisia. Archaeological fieldwork has been undertaken (preceded by a geophysical survey) in the southwestern quarter of the ancient city to study the architecture, chronology and urban context of the circus. The area has, unlike the rest of Carthage, not been targeted by excavations of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries and, also unlike the rest of Carthage, is mostly not overbuilt, although under pressure from neighbouring communities. The area is the last one allowing a large-scale diachronic urban study in which the circus and its impact on the quarter is in the centre. From our first results, we can date the beginning of the construction of the circus to the late first century AD, with interventions in the early third century and usage continuing into the sixth. We were able to define the extension of the northern cavea and to study the western part of the spina and identify the meta at this point. Information has been obtained on early Roman, pre-circus use of the area as well as data on the Punic phases. Sixth- and seventh-century levels are also well preserved.

The charismatic Consul-General Hanmer Warrington held his post in Tripoli for thirty-two years, during which time he cultivated a good, if tempestuous, working relationship with the Bashaw and the other foreign consuls. The large Warrington family was raised there. When they outgrew the Consulate building, which dated from 1774, the Consul designed a country house, and had it built two miles outside the town. It was near this house, and by the sea, that in 1830 he and the other consuls founded a walled Protestant Cemetery for the burial mainly of Europeans. This cemetery was rediscovered and studied by Abdulhakeem Amer Tweel of Tripoli, who is in the process of publishing a book on the subject.

This article reports on the work carried out by the UNESCO Libyan Valleys project in 1989 within the church at Souk el Awty in the Wadi Buzra. It includes a detailed analysis of the upstanding structure of the building together with the results of the trial excavations conducted within it. The place of the Souk el Awty church amongst the other churches in the pre-desert and on the coast is discussed, and dates suggested for its initial construction and subsequent modification when an eastern apse was inserted into the nave. The suggestion by some scholars that this eastern apse was the mihrab of a mosque is dismissed.

There are, in the gardens of the Department of Antiquities at Cyrene, two well preserved grain mills which probably date to the early Imperial Roman period. The context and location of their discovery within Cyrene is not known and their dating must rely on parallels from elsewhere. Moreover, it cannot be certain that each catillus (upper millstone) originally belonged with the meta (lower millstone) with which it is now associated, although it seems likely in view of their compatible sizes.

Both grain mills are of hard, grey, vesicular volcanic lava and were certainly imported into Cyrenaica, which has a purely sedimentary geology and no rock suitable for intensive grinding. A study of millstones in Cyrenaica would for this reason provide important information about the trade in millstones in the eastern Mediterranean region. This subject has received little attention to date, but has considerable potential, particularly in the light of Peacock's recent study (1980) of the complex and wide ranging Roman millstone trade in the central Mediterranean region. It was in this context that a sample was taken from the catillus of each grain mill and examined in thin section using a petrological microscope.

This paper discusses Egyptian faience vessels of the Roman period from Fezzan. The nature and characteristics of Roman faience are discussed together with a petrological analysis of the material. The different vessel forms from Fezzan are recorded. Parallels in glass and pottery suggest a late first or second century AD date for most of the material.

Lepcis and Cyrene in Roman times were two very different cities, each typical of the province to which it belonged—Lepcis to Africa Proconsularis, one of the most successfully ‘Romanized’ provinces of the Roman Empire, and Cyrene to the province of Crete and Cyrene which always remained part of the Greek-speaking world and retained much of its Greek character and institutions. Architecturally, Lepcis today is one of the most impressively Roman cities, with its splendid public buildings, which include the grand Severan Forum and Basilica and the massive Hadrianic Thermae, and its spacious streets. Cyrene, in contrast, preserves an image that is severely Greek, dominated by austere Doric architecture. Even in quite late Roman times there seems to have been a determined effort to preserve the old forms, so that the Capitolium, for example, on the edge of the old Agora, was re-built under Antoninus Pius as a Greek building.

On the occasion of the Libya exhibition, I have tried to find a theme to bring together these two very diverse provinces that both form part of the modern Libyan Arab Republic. The choice of Septimius Severus, emperor from A.D. 193–211, needs some explanation. He was, of course, born at Lepcis probably in 146; he was there again as legatus of his uncle, the Proconsul of Africa; he may have gone there as Emperor in A.D. 203 during a grand tour of Africa and personally planned the great building programme which transformed his home-city. There is, on the other hand, no record of his ever having been at Cyrene, though he might have gone there as a boy. It is generally believed, indeed, that his first experience of the Greek-speaking empire was when he went to Syria to serve under Pertinax in A.D. 180. He does, however, provide a suitable link in that he was commemorated by sculptured monuments in both places, and the attitudes of mind which these monuments reflect, help us, I think to understand the underlying unity as well as the diversity of the two provinces.

The Ptolemais aqueduct is of a type common in the ancient world. It consists of a concrete channel, several layers thick, though this seems to vary (see Pl. XIVa and sections), which is set in a framework of roughly-dressed, mortared stone. The channel itself rests in a bed of mortar which in turn is based either on stone foundations or the Gebel bed rock (see Pl. XIII and sections). The upper surface of the supporting framework was cemented on each side like the channel itself. Throughout the aqueduct's length the channel width varies considerably, but averages about 0·40 m.

The country through which the aqueduct passes on the north side of the Gebel Akhdar is arid, stony and covered with often dense scrub. A series of wadis running from the Gebel to the sea cuts the twenty-four kilometres between Wadi Habbun, where the aqueduct begins its course, and Tolmeita where it completes it. To carry the water for Ptolemais over these wadis bridges were constructed.

The condition of the aqueduct varies throughout its length. In some places, such as between Wadis Habbun and El-Meleca, it runs continuously for over one kilometre, but for the same distance on the east side of Sidi Belgasem it cannot be traced. Some pieces of it are complete and with only minor repairs would be ready for use but in other places only the channel or stone framework remain. Nevertheless it is possible to follow the aqueduct's course from Wadi Habbun to the city walls of Ptolemais. Only its actual source in Wadi Habbun, its course in Wadi El-Meleca, and in Wadi El Rumman, and its disappearance at the city walls raise questions as yet unanswered.

The so-called ‘catalogue of tribes’ in Corippus, Iohannis, II.28–161 is central to the historical ethnography of Moorish North Africa in Late Antiquity, yet the sources behind this passage and its poetic function have never been directly addressed. The present paper argues that Corippus derived this material from the trophies carried in the triumphal procession that marked the successful conclusion of John Troglita's campaigns in 548. The evocation of this ceremony at the outset of Corippus’ narrative corresponds to the ironic tone which permeates the work, but also explains the eccentric form of the material included within the catalogue. The paper concludes with some observations about the implications of this for modern understanding of Moorish ‘tribal’ society in the later Roman and early Byzantine period.

The excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi, within the Hellenistic and Roman city of Berenice, yielded a considerable variety of inscriptions on portable objects in addition to monumental epigraphy. An account of the latter was published in the first volume of the final reports in 1977, together with a very short and preliminary list of the former. Following the detailed studies of various classes of material, it seemed opportune to bring together an updated account of the inscriptions on ‘minor objects’, which range from missiles to transport amphorae, table wares, kitchen wares, and lamps.

The ancient landscapes surrounding Cyrene, which have been incredibly well preserved for centuries, have suffered more destructions in the past 7 or 8 years than in the whole of the last millennium. Urban encroachment, strong demographic pressure, unsustainable exploitation of resources and unplanned growth of infrastructures and services are threatening the archaeological heritage of this splendid site. The Department of Antiquities (DoA) has always struggled against these phenomena, but today the destructions are so great that the DoA is often powerless to act. This paper continues previous works on the damage to the Cyrenean necropoleis after 2011(Abdulkariem and Bennett, 2014; Al Raeid et al. 2016; Menozzi, Di Valerio et al. 2017; Menozzi, Tamburrino et al. 2017) and proposes strategies to help, on the basis of a preliminary report organised by the Mission of the University of Chieti in collaboration with the Departments of Antiquities of Cyrene and Tripoli, as requested by UNESCO. This preliminary step towards further improvements and needs to be discussed with other institutions and missions. The first part presents a proposal for controlling the core and buffer zones around Cyrene; the second part is an update on the recent damages to the necropoleis.

The purpose of this paper is to record the involvement of primary-age children from a Libyan-administered school in Marsa-el-Brega in basic archaeological practice, both in the classroom and in the field. The site of Boreum (as identified by Goodchild in 1951), which is in an area adjacent to the school, was used for fieldwork. As well as describing the methodology that was applied, the outcome of the work at Boreum is recorded, in the hope that it will be shown that not only is such practice viable, but also that the results can make a small but useful contribution to our knowledge of such sites.

This article examines the trial in 1843 and 1844 of Giovanni Battista Caruana, a Maltese, for the murder of a Jew in Tripoli. He was found guilty but was not executed because the victim's impoverished wife agreed to accept compensation. The case took place against the background of the British government's increasing impatience with what they saw as uncontrolled Maltese and Ionian communities, leading to the enactment of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1844. It also demonstrated the importance of the individual authority of the Consul, Hanmer Warrington, and the extent to which consuls' personal objectives and opinions weighed on the development of British policy, and the extent to which Warrington's concern to uphold the law coincided with that of the Pasha of Tripoli, so that the case led to a close identification between the local government and the British consular representative.

Libya in the last nine centuries has been dramatically transformed from a multi-religious, predominantly Berber speaking State into an almost Arabised, Muslim nation. This transformation is considered in relation to the emergence of the Ribāṭ and the Murābiṭīn, including the Ashrāf. This article explores the linguistic and historical roots of the Ribāṭ, Murābiṭīn and Ashrāf. It also examines the spread of Ṣufism in Libya, and die influence both the Ṣūfi orders and the Murābiṭin and Ashrāf have had on Libyan politics and society.