Much extant research on monumental burial structures considers mausolea in isolation from one another, both spatially and temporally, separating them from the more extensive cemeteries that either pre-existed or were built up around them. This paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing archive-based project studying Tripolitanian Roman-period funerary landscapes, specifically investigating the relations between mausolea and their adjacent cemeteries. These relations start to help us understand the patterns in the burial traditions of the region and demonstrate the importance of the ongoing interaction between the living and the monuments of the dead. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of archival research, especially in areas that are inaccessible due to conflict.

Tourists come to Libya for two reasons: to admire the antiquities and/or to experience the natural wonders of the desert. The flow of tourists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been very variable, depending on political circumstances. As a result, the availability of authoritative guidebooks to the antiquities has also been variable. During the years immediately prior to the 2011 revolution, the Society for Libyan Studies has promoted the publication of new Libya Archaeological Guides, both in English for foreign visitors and (progressively) in Arabic for the benefit of the Libyan population.

The existence of a Roman military fort at the town of Mizda, about 150 km south of Tripoli, has long been assumed, in spite of scarce archaeological indications. A field survey, conducted recently in the area around the old town of Mizda, yielded an assemblage of pottery dating to the mid and late Roman periods. The pottery provides the first unequivocal evidence for a Roman settlement around (and beneath) the old town, most probably in the form of a fort and vicus.

This article discusses a GIS analysis of the results of the Carthaginian Countryside survey conducted by Joseph Greene from 1979 to 1983. The 136 sites identified by the project constitute one of the largest datasets of site locations recorded in the hinterland of Carthage from multiple time periods. The results of this survey have not generally been integrated into modern studies of the region because the project was never fully published and has not been digitised. This paper discusses the challenges of working with legacy data and the importance of using GIS to both preserve and analyse the Carthaginian Countryside survey. The results presented here reveal new insights into the antiquity of the rural landscape around the city of Carthage and the importance of revisiting legacy datasets to contextualise current research.

Whereas the reactions of animals to heat are largely behavioural, responses to water shortage are primarily physiological. These characters are exhibited in all terrestrial biomes, but are enhanced in the desert. Desert animals, in general, are either cryptically sand-coloured or else black when distasteful or poisonous. This applies to all three taxa under discussion; most beetles are black, most lizards cryptic. Scorpions, paradoxically, may be either black or cryptic. Examples of mimicry and protective resemblance are also cited. It is concluded that scorpions, beetles and lizards are especially successful desert animals, not so much on account of unique adaptations to the harsh and variable environment as to their innate qualities which have adapted them for life in hot, dry and unpredictable habitats.

Libya has enjoyed a considerable growth of its national economy since its crude oil was produced and exported in the early 1960s and Libyan society has achieved a higher standard of living than in the 1950s. But despite the increasing and rapid expansion in the education system, the rising figures for enrolment and well-equipped buildings, the country still suffers from acute shortages of the well-qualified and skilled human resources that should meet the country's socio-economic development and transformation plans, and run the increased number of large industrial establishments like the oil industry, where a large number of foreign personnel still occupy core functions.

This paper shows that a number of practical and theoretical problems are responsible for inaccurate manpower planning, and also for the retardation of the development of Libya's manpower education and training, needed to ensure the country had the necessary well-qualified personnel who would perform their employment duties properly in order that the country achieves its planned socio-economic development targets.

For real control of Libya's natural resources, mainly oil and gas, the paper calls for urgent action to be taken for a well-planned and properly executed Libyanisation policy and more effective use of the most necessary non-Libyan personnel. It outlines the scientific and practical factors needed to improve labour productivity, describes the procedure and methodology of manpower forecasting currently in use, and calls for action to correct its deficiencies.

The paper also attempts to point out the major role that the university and other educational institutions have to play in the education and training of the country's people. It also suggests that more effort should be made to link and involve the educational institutions, and the university in particular, with the industrial and other economic sectors in the country. Also required is a variety of good services which can be employed in consultative work and collaborative involvement, based on a thorough understanding of the requirements both of industry and the university as a consultative and research centre, in addition to its educational functions. These and other aspects are fully discussed and a call is made for better planned and strategic reform of the education and training systems in Libya, so that the country can truly adjust to changes in its students and the workforce.

‘Notes from Libya’ is a new regular feature of Libyan Studies following the reports of the Society's Head of Mission. 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 situation, which impacts on the management of Libya's ancient monuments and artefacts. The importance and historical interest of these reports now, however, merits a wider audience and a more formal record, so these accounts are now published in Libyan Studies.

This paper provides an interpretative framework and classification for the macro- and microscopic identification and provenancing of ancient Greek and Roman ceramic fabrics from Cyrenaica and the wider North African littoral based on ceramic petrology and the kinds of clay sources available for ancient pottery production.

This note presents five aerial photographs of Sabratha, and one of Garian, which formerly belonged to C. N. Johns and were recently discovered amongst the papers of John Lloyd. The aerial photographs of Sabratha shed some new light on the town's size and development.

This article presents a new approach to the analysis of the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey data, using a Geographical Information System (GIS) for mapping and spatial analysis of site distribution. The first section of the article describes the way in which the GIS was compiled and linked to the computerised gazetteer database. The second section demonstrates the use of the system as a mapping tool, shedding new light on the settlement trends in the region through time. The final section of the article explores in greater depth some aspects of its potential in sophisticated spatial analysis.

Excavation and study work was continued by the University of Pennsylvania expedition under the direction of Professor Donald White from late June to early September 1976 in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Wadi Bel Gadir, Cyrene (Shahat). With the help of a grant from the Society for Libyan Studies, I was able to begin my study of the votive and portrait sculpture excavated in the sanctuary and to travel to sites and museums in the Cyrenaica and Tripolitania for comparanda research. The 1976 season proved to be a fruitful one, not only for examination of sculpture from previous seasons, but also for acquisition of several fine pieces from new excavation. One life size marble female of Grosse Herkulanerin type (known from 1974) was unearthed and brought to the Casa Parisi sculpture yard, a new overlife size marble female (perhaps representing a priestess) and two underlife size marble peplophoroi of good workmanship were among the major pieces excavated. The two portrait finds were a fine marble female head in a Faustina the Elder hairstyle and a small limestone male head with Alexander the Great overtones. There were several statuettes found, including one of Demeter with her daughter Persephone seated in her lap which has parallels in both Eleusis and the Athenian Agora.

[Dr Fadel was kind enough to provide the information given below at very short notice in two notes, one in English and one in Arabic (which was originally translated for us by Raymond Stock, M.A., Asian and Middle Eastern Department, University of Pennsylvania). The contents of the two notes have been combined here, after helpful discussion with Dr Hafid Walda of King's College London. We look forward to a more complete presentation of this important site in the near future (D.W., J.M.R.).]

The rock-carvings which are the subject of this note were found in 1980 when a group of amateur archaeologists from Derna discovered an ancient site near modern Kharsah (in antiquity the small harbour of Chersis, Ptolemy, Geog. IV.2). The group, consisting of Faraj Al-Mzaini, Mustapha Ab-Shiha, Abdulla Ben Umran, Murzook Husain and Salheen Mansuri, observed traces of ancient occuption on the summit of the coastal hill known as Ras el-Gemal (Camel's Head), c. 20 km west of Derna, near the offshore island identifiable as ancient Aphrodisias (S. Stucchi, Architettura Cirenaica [Roma 1975] 108, n. 3), and beside a small wadi bringing water to the sea from the Gebel to the south. On the hill, which is a rocky outcrop full of caves, Mr Ramadan Kwaider, Inspector in Charge of Museums in the Department of Antiquities at Shahat, reported rock-cut representations of animals. They include long-horned cattle, certainly a cow (fig. 5), perhaps a bull, although this may be a Barbary sheep (fig. 6), along with an animal that resembles an elephant, drawn below the cow, at the bottom of the carved area – it is very small, but the space available was very small.

Yes, Asclepius, statues. Do you see how even you give way to doubt? I mean statues, but statues living and conscious, filled with the breath of life, and doing many mighty works; statues which have foreknowledge and predict future events by the drawing of lots, and by prophetic inspiration, and by dreams, and in many other ways; statues which inflict diseases and heal them, dispensing sorrow and joy according to men's deserts.

Asclepius 24a (3rd century AD Hermetic Dialogue, trans. W. Scott)

In the 1971 and 1978 seasons, the University Museum of Philadelphia Expedition to Cyrene excavated two fragmentary limestone statues of seated females in the extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in the Wadi bel Gadir. One of these two life to over-life size statues (Statue I) was found within the early Imperial S8 Sacred House and the other (Statue II) was retrieved from the broken vaulted roof of Tunnel A, down the slope directly to the north of this house. Both statues may be dated, on grounds of style and archaeological context, to the first half of the first century AD. By virtue of their large size, findspots, and unusual construction, a case may be made that these statues were intended to represent one or both of the Sanctuary's two goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, and used for special rituals, possibly associated with the thesmophoria festival known to be celebrated here.

Statue I (Fig. 1) is fragmentary, only the lower part of a draped female seated on an oval chest (carved in two joining blocks) is preserved, as well as some non-joining fragments of her veiled head and shoulders. The oval chest is entwined by a snake. One block of Statue II remains (Fig. 2), consisting of the right half of a female figure's lower body and part of the chair, possibly a backless one, on which she is seated. This figure holds a plate in her lap filled with fruits, breads, and a piglet's head. It seems reasonable to conjecture that the two statues represent Demeter and/or Persephone. Statue I is seated on an oval chest, probably the kiste, in which the sacred objects of the goddesses were kept. The sacral importance of the chest is underscored by the snake which wraps itself around it. Statue II holds a plate of offerings, among which is a piglet's head (the sacrificial victim used for the Thesmophoria).