This is a short report on a selection of the small finds from the excavations of a Roman house which lies to the west of the theatre at Lepcis Magna. The pottery and coins from the current levels of excavation have been dated to the late 5th and early 6th centuries AD; however, many of the objects seem to be residual. One of the most interesting finds was a solid bronze ring, decorated with two female figures. The object seems to have been functional, with the ring and the bars on which the woman are seated being attached to a soft material such as leather. These characteristics, which can be found on parallel examples, along with other bronze artefacts from the site suggest that the former was part of the decoration of a horse drawn carriage. Several pieces of jewellery were found including two gemstones which were once part of a finger ring, dating from the 2nd century AD. The first is a garnet and shows the goddess Artemis/Diane in her role of huntress, holding a bow and arrow. The second, which is a cornelian, is decorated with a portrait of a youth and may well be a local copy of a type circulating at the time. Many pieces of locally crafted bone and ivory were also found, including a bone plaque with a floral decoration which was originally intended as a decorative inlay for a small object such as a box. A similar piece from Egypt has been dated to around the 3rd or 4th centuries AD.

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.

Traditional settlements in Libya reflect man's response to the harsh environmental conditions and the need to sustain the social organisation and respect social and cultural traditions. Thus urban dwellers have a strong desire for the morphology of settlements and the needs of indigenous habitats. This has played an important part in shaping the character of traditional Libyan cities and town. As far as people are concerned they are part of their community or neighbourhood. This paper reviews the old town of Ghadames to show how traditional settlement successfully responded to the geographical, environmental conditions and social needs. Attention is also focused on the architectural character, house form and building methods and materials, based on a survey carried out by the author in Ghadames oasis in August 1991. It attempts to establish the suitability of traditional building.

This brief report presents the reunification of a hand in the British Museum to a marble statue of Dionysos now in Edinburgh and originally discovered in the sanctuary of Apollo at Cyrene by Robert Murdoch Smith and Edwin Porcher in August 1861.

If Britain had needed a written constitution, the country would not have been short of draftsmen to prepare fundamental laws defining the legislature and the executive and delegating to them appropriate powers of government. However, their services have not been required. It has been mainly in the past twenty-five years that they have found an outlet for their talents through the drafting of constitutions for the many sovereign states that emerged during a period of imperial fission. Although these constitutions have differed in content, they have one thing in common: all of them include constitutional concepts and principles derived from the work of Jeremy Bentham.

It is surprising, however, to find that Jeremy Bentham himself drafted a constitution for the ‘Barbary State’ of Tripoli in 1823. At the time, Tripoli was part of the Ottoman Turkish realm; a form of Islamic state in which concepts of government and law differed so clearly from those of the secular nation-states of Europe that comparison cannot be made succinctly. However, comparisons are unnecessary for present purposes. The operative point in 1823 was that Muslim law and Ottoman tradition left no room for the introduction of a secular constitution in one of its provinces. Nothing short of provincial secession or political revolution at the centre-the two most trodden paths to constitutional reform—could bring about what Bentham would have liked to achieve with his pen. He was not unaware of the difficulties that faced the project and this is reflected in the form he gave to his draft; for it is open to question whether it amounted to what is usually expected of a ‘constitution’.

Mr. Peter Holmes was able to return to photograph the wall in the Gebel south-west of Asabaa, called Hadd Hajar, mentioned in the Society's Second Annual Report, 1970–1, p. 11. Pl. VIII shows one of his photographs. In the foreground is Ras at-Tays al-Abyad, and the main wall below, which runs for 6 km. to Ras Sa'id. A small quantity of pottery found by the watch-tower was clearly Roman, and included an amphora rim and small pieces of late Roman lamp. 2½ km. south of Hadd Hajar near its south-west end another watch-tower was found on Ras at-Tays al-Aswad.

Since the events briefly recorded in last year's Report, continuous excavation has taken place in the Turkish cemetery of Sidi Khrebish in Benghazi. During this period much important information has been gained concerning the Hellenistic and Roman city of Berenice. The excavations were supervised by staff sent out from England by the Society, while workmen and facilities were provided by the Department of Antiquities, which had already begun rescue work ahead of the bull-dozers. The Society's excavations started in September 1971 as an emergency operation, because at that time the site was thought to be available for only about three months in advance of the redevelopment mentioned in the last Report. In fact, the municipal authorities have held up their plans, so that by September 1972 an area of over three acres (1·36 hectares) had been systematically excavated. It is hoped that a further stay of execution of the redevelopment plan will make another four or five acres in the eastern part of the cemetery available for the resumption of excavations in November.

A full account of the Society's involvement with the emergency excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi, is contained in the Annual Reports for 1970–1 and 1971–2. In November 1972, at the invitation of the Libyan Department of Antiquities, the Society sent out a fresh team of archaeologists to begin the new season's excavations. Work has since continued uninterrupted until the time of writing (1 July 1973) and is due to finish at the end of September.

The preservation of the site from redevelopment for another year owes a great deal to the keen and active interest of the late Director-General of Antiquities, Mr Awad Sadawya, and the success of the expedition is greatly indebted to his efforts. We owe our thanks also to the officials of the Department of Antiquities whose sustained good will and co-operation has helped us greatly over this long period. In particular Mr Mohammed Nemri, Acting Director-General of Antiquities, Mr Abdulhamid Abdussaid, Controller of Antiquities for the Benghazi area, and Mr Ali Salem Letrik, Deputy Controller of Antiquities for Benghazi have taken full part in what has always been a team operation.

The disused Turkish cemetery of Sidi Khrebish lies close to the sea, a short distance to the north of the bustling commercial heart of modern Benghazi (see Fig. 1). It covers part of the north-western outskirts of the city of Berenice, founded in 247 B.C., the Hellenistic and Roman successor to the Hellenic city of Euesperides. The major part of the city lies to the south and to the east of the cemetery, under the mixture of Turkish, Italian and more recent buildings which form the modern town.

The quantity of stratified coarse pottery from Sidi Khrebish has been considerable and preliminary study has of necessity been concentrated on important groups from sealed contexts which span the period from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D.

The earliest group is from a cistern of second century B.C. date; the next is from excavation underneath Roman period concrete floors which produced mid-first century A.D. material, while the largest group is from the infill of Roman period cisterns and destruction levels and can be dated to the mid-third century A.D. Information is somewhat scanty for the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. but groups of pottery representing the Byzantine period were recovered in some quantity from the destruction levels of the church and its cistern. A good group of Islamic glazed fine ware and coarse ware was associated with late occupation within the church.

Space does not permit more than a brief survey of the most common and distinctive coarse ware forms from the excavation.

In general, throughout the period of Berenice, the locally made coarse ware form shapes seem to have been influenced from the Eastern Mediterranean, especially in the second and third centuries A.D.

The commonest form of second century B.C. cooking pot is rounded, having a short neck with two vertical ‘strap’ handles from the shoulder merging with the rim (fig. 1). Another distinguishing feature of pottery from this period is a semicircular handle from the body with an indentation at the top where it has been pressed to the rim (fig. 2). Both types are of the distinctive local ‘fossil gritted ware’, the fabric of which ranges from orange brown to dark pink. The clay contains fairly large roughly circular flat flakes of bluish-grey grit, which, when split open, reveal segmented spiral fossil remains. This fabric is very common in all periods.

Extensive British excavations were carried out at Sabratha in 1948–51 under the joint direction of John Ward-Perkins and Kathleen Kenyon. No definitive report on the work done has since been published, and following the deaths of both directors this task has now been assigned to the writer. An interim account is given of the excavations which took place, drawing particular attention to the evidence for the development of the town as a whole, and of the forum area in particular. It is hoped that the surviving documentation will enable the completion of a substantial report.

This paper outlines the ways in which the project is addressing the colonial legacy of Henry Wellcome as well as presenting the data from the first three field seasons at Jebel Moya, south-central Sudan. These data have substantially revised our chronological and socio-economic understanding of the site. Our excavations, initiated in 2017 and continued in 2019 and 2022, show a longer, more continuous occupation of the site than has been previously recognised. The faunal and botanical remains have implications for the spread of early domesticates in the eastern Sahel and for climate changes, and raise issues of resilience. There is confirmed human burial activity from at least the third millennium BC onwards, while the pottery continues to yield information about the variety of decoration and, for the final Assemblage 3, data on its usage. Overall, the continued importance of the site for the eastern Sahel is re-emphasised.