Le lien étroit qui existe entre la cité et son territoire est une évidence qui a gagné en force avec le développement des recherches sur la chôra. En ce qui concerne la Libye, j'ai abordé la question lors du congrès tenu à Cambridge en 1983, et j'ai tenté de présenter une esquisse d'ensemble lors de la rencontre tenue à Paris en 1984. Si je désire m'arrêter cette fois-ci sur le territoire de Taucheira, c'est en raison de l'originalité qu'il présente parmi ceux des cités grecques de Libye. Taucheira est en effet la cité la plus ancienne après Cyrène, et sa fondation remonte certainement aux dernières années du VIIème siècle. J'ai d'autre part eu déjà l'occasion de montrer que, à l'origine, le site ne comportait aucun port naturel. Dans ces conditions, on peut légitimement se demander quel était l'intérêt de cette fondation. La question prend toute son actualité en raison de la reprise de travaux archéologiques d'ampleur grâce au Département des Antiquités de Libye avec le concours du Département d'Archéologie de l'Université Garyounis de Benghazi, sous la conduite de M. Fouad Bentaher.

Le territoire de Taucheira est bien défini, que ce soit du point de vue de la topographie, de la géologie ou de l'hydrographie.

Du point de vue topographique, le territoire de Taucheira est un élément de la plaine côtière qui prend naissance au Nord-Est au ras Tolmeita et qui s'étend jusqu'au fond de la Grande Syrte, en s'élargissant progressivement au fur et à mesure que l'on vas vers le Sud. Au Nord-Est, la côte vient baigner le pied du premier gradin. Au droit de Taucheira la plaine côtière mesure environ 4,5 km. D'une facon générale, cette plaine côtière offre toutes les caractéristiques du Sahel cyrénéen.

Ain Wif is well known to students of Roman Tripolitania as the settlement and military road-station of Thenadassa, studied and published by Goodchild and Ward-Perkins. The site lies on the summit of the eastern bank of the Wadi Wif prior to its confluence with the larger Wadi Hammam, and is some fifteen kilometres west of Sidi as Sid (Tazzoli) village. The ain (spring) is marked by a small oasis of palms and, as Goodchild and Ward-Perkins pointed out, the assured water-supply was presumably the determining factor in the establishment of the Roman settlement, sometime in the first century A.D.

During a visit to the site in December 1978, as Research Assistant to Olwen Brogan for the Society of Libyan Studies, I discovered a dense concentration of struck flints immediately to the north-east of the oasis. (Plate ?. Map ref. UR 463 686 on sheet 1989. II, Qarat al Bayda, series P761 of the U.S. Army Map Service). With the help of Miss Tina Watson, 124 struck flints, mostly waste flakes, and a number of fire-crazed flints were picked up from the surface within the space of half an hour. The main concentration lies within an area of about five metres square on sand and gravel and, no doubt, represents a prehistoric knapping-floor. It is doubtful whether much, if any, stratigraphy will be found on the site.

This article is a reassessment of an inscription dated to 473 H. / AD 1080–81 from Qasr al-Hammâm, in the hinterland of Lepcis Magna. The inscription is contextualised within the historical literature of the period and a new reading is proposed; following a careful analysis of the architecture it is suggested that the original plan of the qasr is of medieval date rather than earlier. The inscription appears to corroborate the reliability of Ibn Khaldoūn regarding the settlement of the āl-Sālim tribe in the vicinity of Lepcis: the late eleventh century ‘Émir Sālim’ referred to by Khaldoūn is in all probability the same man as the emir mentioned in the inscription.

The present contribution considers Italic imports into Tripolitania between the end of the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD with special reference to the city of Lepcis Magna and its territory. The imports consist mainly of fine ceramic tableware and amphorae. The archaeological context is varied and highlights the diverse use of Italic goods. A wealth of information has been derived from the study of subterranean tombs excavated in the suburbs of Lepcis by the Libyan Department of Antiquities and by the University of Rome III mission. The assemblages consist of grave goods dated to between the middle of the first century BC and the 3rd century AD. Here we consider a sample of ten subterranean tombs not all of which have been published. They are located in the necropolis of the western suburbs of Lepcis with the exception of a tomb at Gelda, in the southern suburbs, and the Ganima tombs in the countryside to the east of Lepcis. Burial in subterranean tombs apparendy was reserved for the nobility while the majority of the population were buried in surface cemeteries often nearby. A contextual study of the early and middle Imperial period of the villa of Wadi er-Rsaf—excavated between 1995 and 1998—provided more data. Further surface reconnaissance surveys of various sample areas near Lepcis were carried out by the same mission in 1999-2000. Special emphases is placed on the survey in the Silin area on the coast some 15 km west of Lepcis and another inland in W Tareglat, now semi-desert, 40 km SE of Lepcis. The quality of the documentation is uneven but good enough to reveal the presence of Italic goods in different contexts: the ritual setting of a necropolis, everyday life in a prosperous suburban home, and rural settlements in the hinterland.

Misurata is the second city of Western Libya (Tripolitania) and, with its surrounding farms and villages, had some 83,000 inhabitants in the early nineteen-sixties, but has grown rapidly since then. West of the city is a narrow but fertile plain coming from Zliten between the dune-encumbered coastal ridge and a line of low hills which are the last eastward vestiges of the Tripolitanian Jebel and which come to an end shortly before Misurata. Twelve kilometres to the east, at Gasr Ahmed, the coast turns south-eastwards to form the western side of the Greater Syrtis, or Gulf of Sidra. Between Misurata and Gasr Ahmed the cultivated area narrows to become a kind of peninsula between the coast and the marshes of the Sebkha Taworga which are extensively flooded during the winter. South of Misurata, along the main road to Fezzan and Cyrenaica, the country becomes increasingly arid. East of the road cultivation soon gives place to mud flats and salt marshes, the successive sebkhas Taworga, Hishah and Al Awenat, which together cover an area some hundred kilometres long and twenty broad.

The name Misurata (Misratah) is Berber and did not come into the district until the tribal movements in late antiquity, when the Hawara spread into Eastern Tripolitania. According to tradition the Berber hero Aurigh had four sons, Calden, Meld, Hawar and Maggher. All their descendants came to be designated collectively as the children of Hawar, and among these were Wurfel and Misratah, sons of Meld. The sons of Wurfel have dwelt ever since in and to the south of Beni Ulid, and the Misratah have occupied the coastlands to the northeast. Ibn Batuta mentions passing through the country of the Misratah in 1326. Ibn Khaldun says that in his days (14th century) the Misratah were very powerful and only paid a very small tribute to the Arabs, ‘tribute which they have the air of handing over by condescension.’ He says ‘they occupy themselves by commerce, and travel frequently to Egypt and Alexandria, to southern Tunisia and to Fezzan.’ The inhabitants of the Misurata area to-day include groups of Berber origin mixed with the descendants of the first Arabs who came into Tripolitania; others, descended from Turkish immigrants; and yet others claiming Sherifian origin, that is, descent from the Prophet Mohamed himself.

On my first visit to Cyrene in summer 1972 I was so intrigued by the figurative relief standing on the south side of the so-called Valley Street, immediately to the east of the modern village of Shahat, that I decided to include it in my doctoral thesis. I visited the site in the distinguished company of the late Prof. D. E. Strong, who was then my research supervisor, and Mr. Philip Kenrick. We spent together some hours in front of this fascinating monument discussing a number of points concerning the architecture of the building to which it belonged, the identification of the figures, the iconography of the then hypothetical portraits, and the reading of the inscription. A full description and discussion of the monument were given by Professor Strong in a lecture delivered at the British Museum on the occasion of the opening of the Exhibition of Libyan Antiquities on 14th June, 1973, and later published in the Society for Libyan Studies Report. I returned to Cyrene in summer 1973 in order to make a more thorough examination of the relief and to produce a number of detailed photographs of the heads. The contents of this article are the result of these observations and the stimulating discussions I had with Professor Strong on the subject.

For a comprehensive description of the relief I refer the reader to Strong's contribution in the Fourth Annual Report, but it is appropriate to recapitulate briefly. The relief in question constituted the figured frieze of the entablature of a monumental gateway resting on Corinthian columns. Beneath the frieze, which must have been more than 11m long, ran an inscription in two lines of standard monumental Greek letters. All the architectural elements, including the frieze, are carved on a very gritty and shelly limestone. The state of preservation is very poor: the figures on the right hand block are almost completely lost and elsewhere heads and limbs have fallen off, in some cases being cemented back. The best preserved are the central figures, but even here the sugary limestone has eroded to some extent (Fig.Ia).

This is a contribution to a reassessment of colonial archaeology in Libya, based on the academic and political/ ideological portraits of the archaeologists serving in the Tripolitanian and (from 1936) Libyan Soprintendenza. Italian colonial archaeologists were, often deliberately, instruments of political strategy. They searched for traces of Rome in the nationalistic context of the Libyan War, and sought to reconstruct an idealised vision of the Roman cities during the Fascist Ventennio. The essential continuity between nationalist archaeology of the Liberal period (1910–1922), characterised by the central idea of the civilising force of Rome as a tool of colonial expansion, and the Fascist archaeology of 1922–1943, in which the integration of archaeology with political aims touched on the extreme, sometimes with grotesque results, will be stressed and a chronological overview presented. Negative judgment should be nuanced by placing the colonial archaeology in its historical context, analysing its structure, remembering that its methodological backwardness was shared by metropolitan archaeology, noting the high quality of the restoration work and finally by comparing Italian fieldwork with that of other European excavations in North African or Near Eastern protectorates and colonies. It is not a case of presenting a revisionist interpretation, but of approaching the subject without prejudice.

In the course of research on Alan Rowe's Cyrenaican expeditions, when he was Special Lecturer at Manchester University, Rowe's career as an Egyptologist came unexpectedly to light from his personal papers, national archives and the records of various museums. What emerged was a picture of a man who had an active life, not only in Egypt and Cyrenaica, but also in Australia, Palestine and Syria.

The edict of the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III of AD 435 laid down the laws on the juridical dissolution of pagan sanctuaries and the annexation of the temple property. The probability of tallying such historically confirmed situations with archaeological finds always poses a difficult methodical question. A small number of interesting examples from the late antique Dioceses Africa and Ægyptus therefore deserve the author's closer attention: the temple of Apollo at Cyrene, the three-aisled Christian basilica at the ‘Vetus Forum’ of Lepcis Magna, the Jupiter Dolichenus Temple at the port of the same city (all in Libya), and the basilicas in Sbeitla (Sufetula), Djebel Oust (both in Tunisia) and Tipasa (Algeria).

Unfortunately, in none of these cases, could the exact date of rebuilding be established. But even so, it is obvious that the edict of Theodosius II cannot be considered as a definitive terminus ad quem. Archaeological as well as historical facts indicate that the process of destroying pagan cults and transforming temples into Christian sites lasted for almost a century (early fourth up to the mid-fifth). Theodosius Il's edict thus legalised a custom that had already been in practice for decades.

The only building which has been preserved from the ancient urban fabric of Tripoli, Oea in antiquity, is the Triumphal Arch. By considering Arab sources, we may shed new light on its evolution, the place it had been in the past and the way it was considered during those times. If we compare two excerpts from Arab-Muslim historiography, written by local travellers, with Western testimonies, we see that the monument was reinterpreted in the light of the new culture which was established in the region and of the local history of the city.

Given the lack of local sources, the history of Tripoli as a global Mediterranean city remains unclear until the Ottoman conquest of the 16th century. Given that documentary record, the exploration of the rich Arabic tradition written in al-Andalus provides a fresh insight into how Tripoli constructed its Mediterranean stature prior to the 11th century. First, the systematic analysis of Islamic biographical literature (ṭabaqāt) shows Tripoli was one of the most visited cities by the Andalusian scholars across the Islamic world. It also reveals they were in close contact with the Tripolitanian Mālikī networks. Eventually, The Tripolitanian elites took advantage, of that specific Andalusian connection, and using the rivalry between the caliphal powers at the dawn of the 11th century they assured the independence of the city for the first time while rejecting the Fatimid-Zirid power and recognizing the sovereignty of the Spanish Umayyads.

Trigeminated at more or less the same time as the First of September Revolution and the appearance of the first published report from The Society for Libyan Studies, the excavation phase of the extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone project at Cyrene ran until 1978 when it was stopped in order to begin work on final publication. The intervening years have seen a degree of progress, and this retrospective vicenary issue of Libyan Studies provides a welcome opportunity to take stock of what has been and is going on. The journal's readers will already have some familiarity with the broad outlines of the sanctuary project, since summary articles have been published in an earlier issue (White 1978) and elsewhere (Vickers and Reynolds 1972; Kane 1979; Humphrey 1980; White 1981). In addition reviews of the three published volumes of the final report (White 1984; Schaus 1985; Lowenstam et al. 1987) have appeared here with exemplary promptitude (Lloyd 1985; Boardman 1986; Fulford 1988), as well as externally (Brown 1986; Tomlinson 1986; Cook 1987). The present article's bibliographical citations list what has been written about the sanctuary, but omit the series of preliminary reports in Libya Antiqua (between Vols. 8 and 16) and American Journal of Archaeology (Vols. 78 and 80), whose inclusion would be redundant, as would be any attempt to minute the contents of the reviewed final study volumes. Instead my present intention is to give a short report on work in progress and to summarise the results of what has already been published in separate studies outside the framework of the final publication.

A large number of mosaic floors in Cyrenaica are in poor condition and a systematic programme for the assessment of exposed mosaics followed by strategic planning for their long term preservation is long overdue and badly needed. A mosaic floor discovered at Tocra in 1972 is a prime example of a deteriorated pavement. In this case the Department of Antiquities decided to protect the mosaic by careful reburial in a methodical fashion. Preservation of the Tocra pavement by careful reburial, with due regard to context and need, is unprecedented and represents a new, extreme but essential conservation activity for Libyan archaeology.

From the Musée Algérien established at the Louvre in Paris by Captain Delamare, to the Bibliothèque-musée created by A. Berbrugger in 1838 in the former Janissaries barracks in Algiers, to the short-lived Musée Africain, the archaeological collections of Algeria did not have a real museum space until 19 April 1897, when the Musée des Antiquités Algériennes et d'Art Musulman was inaugurated in the Parc de Galland (today the Parc de la Liberté). Independent Algeria placed the museum under the Ministère de l’éducation nationale until 1970, and then it was moved to the Ministère de l'information et de la culture, and the Musée Stéphane Gsell became the Musée National des Antiquités, financially autonomous in 1985 under the Ministère de la culture. Have the true missions of a museum been fulfilled? And what is the situation at the Louvre where only a few ancient Algerian works are now on display?

The author discusses a gold dinar, found at Cyrene, of the Caliph al-Waleed bin Abd el-Malik, and its place within the Umayyad reformed coinage.