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.

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.

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 reports on the results of the 2008 and 2009 field seasons to survey and record rock engravings in the Wadi al-Hayat. The project started in 2004 with the intention of systematically surveying a 160 km long section of the wadi, centred on the Garamantian settlement at Jarma. This was completed in 2009 in collaboration with the Desert Migrations project. Over 600 previously unrecorded engraved panels were identified in 2008–9. These appear to range in date from the early Pastoral period to the post-Garamantian period. Clear links have been noted in previous seasons in the distribution of the engravings with respect to specific topographic and cultural features. The 2008–9 survey showed that rock carvings also mark patterns of movement through the wadi, and that these patterns appear to shift over time between the Pastoral and post-Garmantian periods. Some of the areas investigated provide relatively easy access into the Wadi al-Hayat from the south and may have represented important corridors for the migration of people and animals for thousands of years.

In tandem with the systematic survey, a targeted survey of selected Late Pastoral and Garamantian cemetery and settlement sites was undertaken during the 2008 season. No positive relationship was found between rock engravings and Garamantian burial or settlement sites. However, a definite association was demonstrated between rock art and Late Pastoral burials and temporary camp sites.

The neuter substantive centenarium appears in a series of documents to designate a particular type of building. The etymology and precise meaning of this word have long been debated by scholars, who have proposed a wide range of explanations, none of which appears to be entirely satisfactory. In this paper, we put forward a different solution, taking into account textual, archaeological and linguistic evidence. In our opinion, the word centenarium comes from centenum, which means a kind of a cereal; thus, centenarium indicates a ‘fortified grain-house’. It seems probable that original centenaria were military structures of varying shape and size, first created in the third century and then spreading in the Tetrarchic period. They appear to be distinctive of the African provinces, from which comes most of the evidence, but one cannot exclude that the same name was applied to similar structures in other parts of the Empire (such as in the Iberian Peninsula, for instance). The military centenaria were later imitated by private landlords – maybe even indigenous chieftains in charge of the defence of sectors of the frontier – who transferred the name to their unofficial or para-official defensive structures. This process of emulation was already advanced in Constantinian age.

It is appropriate that the Society for Libyan Studies should recall the visit of James Bruce of Kinnaird to Libya in 1766. He was the first European to visit the country who possessed both the knowledge and the equipment to undertaken an exploratory expedition with any serious claim to scientific method. But it might seem to a reader of one of Bruce's biographies that the event was of such slight and transitory interest hardly to deserve recognition. Bruce himself allowed it to be overshadowed by his subsequent experiences in Abyssinia which culminated with his visit to the source of the Blue Nile, the final goal of his great journey. A recent bibliography of Libya and a recent standard work on the country omit all reference to his name. Surely this is unjustified. Many years were to pass before other Europeans were to undertaken comparable journeys in Libya.

The large scale housing programme of the Libyan Government is changing the appearance of many of the towns of Libya. As part of this programme, the National Housing Corporation have recently adopted new standards for housing design, in order to ensure that the houses are better suited to the needs of the population in different parts of the country. During the investigations to develop new standards, the traditional housing in a number of regions of the country was studied, with a special emphasis on the way it relates to the climate and the way of life of the inhabitants. One of the most interesting traditional house forms was found in the oasis of Ghadames. My interest in the houses of Ghadames is not only in their history, their location in Libya or the climatic extremes to which they are subjected, but in the unusual form developed to provide protection from the climate, and the way that this form relates to the social patterns.

Ghadames lies on the western border of Libya, close to the junction with the borders of Algeria and Tunisia. It is located about 400 km from the coast, and about 450 km from Tripoli. The journey from Tripoli can be made in a few hours by the regular internal flight or in a day by car or bus. After leaving the green coastal strip the road crosses the Jafara plain and climbs the escarpment at Nalut. From Nalut the road runs south across the steppe and desert, past the oases of Sinawn and Derj to Ghadames.

Benghazi has been photographed many times from the air, but few are aware that the layout of the city was-recorded in air photographs taken very early in the twentieth century. (International Archiv für Photogrametrie 1914). These photographs provide an unusually detailed impression of the streets, public buildings and dwellings of the city, and also allow students of the Middle Eastern and North African city to observe the evolution of the city by studying later comparative photography. Libya is especially rich in such imagery at least for the recent past (Allan 1969). The purpose of this brief study is to draw attention to the rich source of evidence available in air photo records through an interpretation of an early twentieth century image along with just one of the more recent photographs taken in this area in 1965.

The determination of the date of the old photo-mosaic is the first task of interpretation. The journal in which it was published appeared in 1914, which places the image earlier than the outbreak of World War I and possibly prior to the occupation of northern Libya by Italian forces in 1911. The photo shows no evidence of the buildings which were constructed by the Italian colonists. Nor has there been any significant transformation at the harbour. In the eastern extremity of the early twentieth century city there is an assemblage of military equipment, accommodation and transport. Whether this is evidence of Turkish or Italian occupation is difficult to determine, and so we must be satisfied at this stage to date the photographs between 1911 and 1913.

A small limestone half-figure from Alan Rowe's 1957 excavations in Cyrene was recently found to have the word ΘEA lightly inscribed on the polos. The authors describe the sarcophagi with which this figure may have been associated, together with the burial artifacts found within them. It is rare to find ΘEA used in this way, although two examples from Eleusis provide useful parallels. One is a votive plaque, the other a large relief, and each portrays the Eleusinian deities whose iconography is discussed here and compared with that of the Cyrene ΘEA example and also other uninscribed Cyrene half-figures.

This paper is a preliminary report on the eighth and final fieldwork (Spring 2006) season of the excavations at Euesperides (Benghazi). Work continued in Areas P and Q on the Sidi Abeid mound, in Area R in the lower city and on the processing of finds from the 2006 and previous seasons.

In Area P excavations continued below the primary floors of the antepenultimate phase in Room 5a where a series of inter-cutting pits beneath the primary floor provided a section through the stratigraphy to natural. The results of the work showed that occupation in the sixth to fourth centuries BC was less intensive and accumulated at a slower rate than in the Hellenistic period. Three phases of early activity were represented, with the earliest levels dated to the period c. 580–560 BC. A comparable picture emerged in Area R, but in Area Q a second-phase set of buildings laid out in or after the late sixth century BC, with houses flanking the street, persisted until late in the life of the city. Excavations in Area Q Extension revealed a large circular building with an internal floor of terracotta sherds set in cement, tentatively interpreted as part of a set of public baths. A late reuse of the building was indicated by a number of plaster-lined tanks formed over the terracotta floor. The presence of the building was taken to indicate that the building and an associated street, aligned over an in-filled quarry, may have been inter-mural, suggesting that the late city was of greater size than hitherto thought.

Selected finewares, coarsewares and amphorae from the excavations are presented, together with preliminary observations, resulting from the environmental sampling of occupation deposits.

The Roman town of Mustis (municipium Iulium Aurelium Mustitanum) is near present-day Mest Henshir (Tunisia). Its epigraphic corpus has around 200 inscriptions mainly published at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when the French archaeological campaigns took place. However, a group of Latin inscriptions discovered during the 1960s remained unpublished. In the reorganisation of the archives of the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (Paris) the original photographs, negatives, slides and documents revealed new data. In this article I present five new inscriptions (three votive texts, a quadruple funerary epitaph and a new boundary stone) and new data and photographs of three already known inscriptions published by G. Wilmanns in the CIL. All these texts reveal new data about the territory of the res publica Mustitana, the sacred life of the city (including the confirmation of a Capitol) and new onomastic information about its inhabitants.

This paper presents in summary form the results of three years of remote sensing and ground-truthing of archaeological sites falling within concession areas held by Shell Libya in the Sirte Basin. This area spans the frontier of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, ranging from Wadi ben Jawwad in the west to Ajdabiyah in the east and south to Jebel Zelten. The work was commissioned by Shell to inform them of archaeological sensitivities during their ongoing operations in the region. The results presented here include the identification of thousands of previously unknown sites of all periods, dating from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Second World War. Prehistoric discoveries include significant numbers of Middle Palaeolithic sites, particularly at Jebel Zelten, and large numbers of Pastoralist Neolithic sites in the coastal hinterland and on palaeoshorelines around sabkhas further north. Traces of Libyan tribes of the first millennium BC have been found in the form of large numbers of pastoralist desert campsites. Extensive evidence for Roman and late antique settlement has been found in the coastal hinterland on both sides of the Gulf of Sirte, as well as evidence for indigenous ‘long hut’ settlements along the desert fringe.

‘Notes from Libya’ is a new regular feature of Libyan Studies and follows the reports of the Society's Head of Mission, as well as updates on the business environment from Pauline Graham. 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 situations which impact on the management of Libya's ancient monuments and artefacts. The importance and historical interest of these reports now, however, merit a wider audience and a more formal record, so these accounts will now be published in Libyan Studies.

The female funerary bust, as a type of grave monument, consists of a bust or a demi-statue including hips, waist, shoulders and head. The type is unparalleled elsewhere in the history of ancient sculpture.

1. This unique unpublished find (pl. 1) of the Flavian period, which is made of grained white marble and measures 50 cm. high by 34 cm. wide, was found at El-Beggara in the S. W. Cemetery at Cyrene by Mr. Ali Bu Nuw-wara on 4 November 1971. The statue portrays a draped woman in half-length bust form. The bust terminates a short way below the waist and is worked flat at the bottom. The figure is in good condition; only three fingers of the left hand are missing and some drapery ridges are chipped or broken.

The figure holds her right arm, bent at the elbow, horizontally across her body; the left arm is bent up to the side of the face and holds part of her garment across the face as a veil. The figure is completely draped in a himation which both enfolds the body and covers the head. The left hand, with thumb, ring and little fingers missing, stretches a part of the himation across the eyes, nose and mouth. These features are indicated under the transparent folds of the mantle. Here the sculptor has precisely demonstrated the delicacy of the facial features through the veil, an effect produced by his controlled chisel work. The figure's forehead is graced with tightly curled hair which is massed over the brow like a short African haircut. The hair style is typical of the Flavian period and is not later than the time of Hadrian. The folds of the himation in front are rendered as sharp ridges crossing the body; the back is also carved with folds of the same type but worked in a more simplified manner. The figure wears a snake bracelet on her left arm; this type of armlet appears in many of these Cyrenean funerary busts and may have iconographic or symbolic significance.

The conventional view is that Malta has been on the ‘forgotten frontier’ of Christian maritime resistance to Islamic expansionism since the Islamic invasions of North Africa in the seventh century. The limited archival and archeological evidence suggests that, up to the arrival of the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Malta in 1530, this picture is not accurate. The Islamic occupation of the Maltese archipelago in 870 created a cosmopolitan Muslim society which persisted until the mid-thirteenth century, despite the Norman conquest of the region in 1090. Indeed, the formal end of Muslim society in Malta only came in 1224, as a side-result of the Hohenstauffen suppression of a Muslim rebellion in Sicily.

Even under the Order of St John contacts with the Muslim world were far closer than is conventionally supposed. The Grand Master of the Order maintained close contacts with the Qaramanlis in Tripoli and the Beys of Tunis during the eighteenth century, despite the continuation of the corso. In reality, contacts had always existed and had been recognised as essential by the Holy See because Malta could not sustain its population once it had exceeded 10,000 persons. Sicily, the obvious source of supply, often exerted undesirable political pressure and the Barbary coast was the only other alternative. The main legacy of the close contacts between Malta and the North African Muslim world, however, is to be found, even today, in the Maltese language, which is really a Medieval variant of North African Arabic.

A small Christian monument of centralised plan built against the West Wall of Apollonia was excavated and slightly restored by the Libyan Department of Antiquities under the directorship of the late Professor Goodchild during the sixties. In 1967 the present writer, then architect to the Michigan Apollonia Expedition, was commissioned to make a set of drawings of the monument as a basis for its publication by Professor Goodchild to appear in the Michigan Report. Professor Goodchild's untimely death in 1968 nullified the project and eventually in its stead only a cursory notice of the monument appeared. The substantive treatment of the monument, utilising the prepared set of drawings, was reserved for the long laboured Corpus of Christian Antiquities of Cyrenaica. Unfortunately in turn this design was frustrated by the death of Professor Ward Perkins in 1986 so that the detailed drawings of the monument remained unpublished for 25 years. In 1991 old prints of the drawings were recovered and are published here with a commentary.

This small square monument with a dome on four pillars giving a rudimentary cross-in-square plan is of late sixth century date. It is clearly sepulchral, whether it be a simple tomb or a martyrion. Thus in spite of its provincial guise it is of interest and significance (together with the Church at Qasr el Lebia) in the long vexed question of the origins of the ecumenical Byzantine cross-in-square plan.