Tribal immigration into and out of Libya has been largely unexplored. This study, based on Arabic and Libyan sources, begins to rectify this. It aims to examine the causes that have led tribes to flee the country voluntarily or by force and will follow the hardship of immigrants during the Qaramanh rule (1711-1835) and their establishment in neighbouring countries.

Based on the author's own fieldwork and that of others, the methodology focuses on primary Arabic sources including interviews and oral traditions to establish a chronology of tribal movements to Egypt, Tunisia and Chad. Once settled outside Libya, these ex-patriot Libyans were involved in key events in their host countries.

Much work on recent unauthorized migration via Libya to Europe – often framed as a migration ‘crisis’ – is focused on linear movement, isolated snapshots and points of arrival on European shores. Migrants’ experiences along their journeys and prior to arriving in Europe, important for their future mobilities, are neglected. By highlighting multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Libya and Malta, this paper calls for an analytical focus on immobilities along the journey, so as to develop a more nuanced account of the lived experiences of mobile life. Immobility retrieves situations and relations erased by linear accounts of migration. When looked at in comparative terms through the journey, immobility reveals the variegated forces that shape mobile life.

Different types of marble portraits are discussed: both official Imperial images as well as private portraits, with the intention of illustrating the relationship to Roman models and to highlight stylistic and technical characteristics belonging to local sculptors. The portraits belonged to honourific statues dedicated in Lepcis Magna in public prestigious areas (Old Forum, Theatre, Serapeum, Hadrianic Baths). In these public meeting places the Imperial government officials, civic authorities and the private evergetes had the opportunity of celebrating the central power and its representatives, from the Emperor and the members of his family to provincial functionaries; personal aspirations of Romanisation and of making a political and administrative career; one's own generosity, personal wealth, preeminent role in civic society, as well as accumulating honours, visibility and social prestige. In the case of some statues of private individuals it is uncertain whether they were intended to be honourific or funerary. The chronological span, extending from the Flavian to the end of the Antonine period, corresponds to the period of greatest social stability and economic prosperity in Tripolitania and in Lepcis Magna in particular. From the analysis carried out, certain distinctive traits of Lepcitan portraiture between the first and second century AD emerge. The influence of the Graeco-Alexandrine tradition, more or less filtered through Cyrene, which held a significant role throughout the early Imperial age, tends to weaken and, at the latest by the end of the Flavian period, to disappear altogether. Local workshops, by now well trained, and in some cases identifiable through a distinctive formal language, become strongly influenced by Rome, either directly or through Carthage, capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis. Alongside this component is the growing influence of Asia Minor, fed by the increasing importation of marble from the eastern part of the empire, which would also have a great deal of influence on architectural decoration. The presence of a masterpiece in the Asiatic style, the female portrait-statue from the Serapeum, is the most striking testimonial of this evolutionary trend.

The translation of so-called ‘honorific’ titles from Punic to Latin, and their deployment in a number of public monumental inscriptions in Lepcis Magna, have often been promoted as evidence for successful Romanisation in the cities of Tripolitania. Titles such as amator concordiae and ornator patriae have been understood as affirmations that the local Lepcitan community had engaged with Augustan ideological concepts and were using them to demonstrate loyalty and support for the principate. This paper argues that a more likely influence on the translation of the titles into Latin came from the notions of philia exhibited by the Greek-speaking communities of the eastern Mediterranean in their interactions with Rome.

This study examines the evidence for mass movement activity in the Eocene deposits of Wadi Al Athrun. Slump and debris flow features were identified and analysed using fold orientation, slip plane separation and angles and mean vector methods. Results indicate that the palaeoslope of the Eocene continental slope was N20W, with a palaeostrike of N70E. Mass movements are separated into two units according to deformation intensity. The lower unit is primarily composed of slumped Bathyal Realm sediments of the Apollonia Formation, while the upper unit evidences slump and debris flow features incorporating nummulite-rich Neritic Realm deposits of the Darnah Formation. These observations represent further insight into the sedimentary history of the continental margins of North Africa.

Research on Libya during the first Ottoman and Qaramanli periods has been handicapped by the lack of a theme. Much work on these periods has been done to a large extent as spin-off from other research contingent on Libya, and new publications in European languages have been few. Their effect has been to cast a bright light on some corners of the subject, but the rest has been left in deep shadow. What follows is a summary of what has been done, together with some suggestions about where concerned research might be directed.

A starting point for any research is bibliography. Bono (1982) provides a general guide to western sources on Libya which includes material on the period, while his earlier article (Bono 1979) concentrates on scarce published sources, some of which come from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Another problem facing researchers is access to contemporary material. There is an immense quantity of consular material in archives in Britian, France and in particular Italy, some of which has been used. Individual longer accounts have been published as well, particularly of manuscript sources.

Among the most interesting manuscripts are the longer, coherent accounts of people who stayed in Tripoli for extended periods. The journals of Thomas Baker, the English Consul in Tripoli between 1677 and 1685, fall into this category, and are discussed below. The guidebook written in 1767 by Anthony Knecht, British Vice-Consul, gives considerable information about the diplomatic, political and economic life of the city (Pennell 1982).

Another way of dealing with these extensive sources is to write commentaries on them. In the first issue of Libyan Studies the works of James Bruce, the Scottish eighteenth century traveller, were discussed (Cumming 1970). This is also the approach adopted by ‘Imad al-Din Ghanim (1982), in his article in Arabic about an anonymous French account, translated into German in 1708 (Allerneuster Zustand der Afrikanischen Konigreiche Tripoli, Tunis and Algier, von einem gelehrten Jesuiten bey verricheter Skavelosung, Hamburg 1708).

This is the first in a series of Chair's notes in Libyan Studies. We hope that future notes will address easier topics and more straightforward success, but for now we think it is important to communicate what we are doing given the difficult circumstances of Libya today. We trust that this report is useful, and we welcome any feedback.

It is the purpose of this article to provide a convenient summary of the full report of the Tocra kiln site excavation (appearing in Libya Antiqua: Riley, in press 2) to incorporate fresh information which has now become available as a result of the Berenice excavations (Lloyd 1977), and to present, in summary, a revised format for the quantified figures.

A considerable quantity of coarse pottery (over 12,000 sherds, weighing nearly 700 kg) was excavated in the course of the limited two week excavation. The range of forms was very similar to that occurring in stratified deposits at Berenice dating from the late second to the mid third centuries A.D. As a detailed publication of this Berenice material is soon to appear (Riley, in press 1), the pottery from Tocra is here reproduced according to the Berenice typology, in order to facilitate the standardisation of coarse pottery classification between the two sites, and within Cyrenaica in general.

The pottery from the various tip levels is consistent and, as fine wares datable to the first half of the third century A.D. were present in both the lowest and uppermost tip levels, the whole excavation appears to represent one period (see Riley 1976). For this reason, while the quantified results of the individual layers are presented in full in the final report, an amalgamation of these results for the whole excavation is here presented in the format subsequently devised for Berenice and Carthage (see Humphrey 1976, 125–156).

How is the white researcher perceived by the border apparatus? What does this interaction say about the border itself? Ethnographic research has framed such questions as a debate on ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ in fieldwork. This is problematic, as it assumes that a researcher can really be ‘external’ to the social worlds they investigate, as if the field site existed in isolation from transnational processes of racialised extraction. This paper challenges such an assumption by arguing that the white researcher cannot be an ‘outsider’ to the North African border: they approach it as the beneficiaries of a system of colonial and capital extractivism that feeds itself through migration control. I build on Ahmed's work on white phenomenology to analyse how various border workers perceived, made sense of and reacted to my presence as a white European woman at three different sites on the Spanish–Moroccan border. I argue that the white researcher is an expected presence at the border, as the accumulated history of (post)colonial encounters leads them where others have been before. Although whiteness opens doors, only a certain kind of performed whiteness remains welcome in the borderscape. The white researcher who appears not to be aligning with or supporting the premises of migration control is perceived by border workers as a potentially disruptive presence, and contained in different ways.

This contribution offers a new reading of the ancient landscape of the periphery of Lepcis Magna thanks mainly to the data from the survey campaigns carried out by the Archaeological Mission of Roma Tre University (2007–13) together with new archival research and GIS analysis. The new data are related to the road network of the Lepcitanian territory and its inner suburban areas. They include both the already known routes (essentially the coastal via publica and the via in mediterraneum) and new roads here presented merging the new information with the already published archaeological evidence. Beside the road network, a new topographic reading of the south-east suburb shows also traces of an ancient land partition based on Roman measurements. This latter discovery would represent, up to now, the first evidence of a cadastrian land partition in Tripolitania.

This paper provides a preliminary record of a recently damaged Roman farm and late Roman fortified building (gasr) located in the eastern suburbs of Benghazi. The remains of the farm buildings are briefly described, together with the more substantial remains of the gasr. The site was truncated during the building of a new road, with further damage occurring during the construction of a major water main and the building of new houses. The plight of Gasr Shibna and other sites threatened by development in the outskirts of Benghazi is discussed, with the conclusion that these sites are representative of the ongoing, rapidly increasing and widespread destruction of Libyan cultural heritage by development across the country as a whole. The paper concludes with an appeal for the development of a stronger, well-resourced Department of Antiquities, the establishment of a National Sites and Monuments Record to assist with the curation and protection of ancient sites and improved planning legislation to ensure that future prosperity is not being secured at the cost of Libyan heritage.

This brief paper has been prepared to shed light on four qsur located in close proximity to one another on three different sites overlooking an important Haj and caravan route between Soluq in northwestern Cyrenaica and Tamimi to the east, on the Gulf of Bomba. Massively built in mudbrick and faced with stone, each qasr was positioned to dominate an adjacent cultivated wadi crossed by the caravan route. The qsur, with many constructional details in common but in various states of dilapidation, were built on the site of previous settlements and have yet to be conclusively dated. Two possible construction dates are suggested. The buildings may have been constructed in the later Roman period to form part of a system of defence similar to the limes Tripolitanus in that they were built not only to protect the settlements and roadway that they undoubtedly served but as frontier outposts (and defence ‘in depth’) for the cities of the Pentapolis on the south side of the Gebel Akhdar. It is equally possible that the qsur may be of post-Roman date, being built not only for a local defensive purpose, but to provide security and hospitality for those travelling the most direct route between Soluq and Tamimi, south of the Gebel.

Nella campagna di scavi condotta a Cirene tra l'ottobre del 1910 ed il maggio del 1911 la Missione Archeologica Americana diretta da Richard Norton portava alia luce circa tremila statuine fittili, intere o quasi, ed una quantità innumerevole di testine ed altri frammenti.

L'occasione per la scoperta era stata del tutto fortuita. Agli inizi di novembre del 1910 un arabo si era presentato al campo portando un cesto con 765 statuette di terracotta, che erano state scavate nel suo giardino posto alle pendici dell'Acropoli, nella parte nord-occidentale, al livello della Terrazza del Santuario di Apollo (la Myrtousa).

Molte conversazioni e molti caffè consentirono al Norton l'inizio dello scavo, in una striscia piana posta a valle di un gradino roccioso. Nel sito non si rinvennero resti di edifici, ma diverse nicchie rettangolari scavate in alcuni speroni di roccia. Immediatamente davanti a queste vennero trovate le statuette di terracotta: esse formavano uno strato dello spessore di una novantina di centimetri.

A environ sept kilomètres à l'Ouest d'Apollonia, au lieu-dit Gasr-as-Suwayrah (indication donnée par S. Stucchi), on remarque, dominant l'étroite plaine côtière, non loin du pied du djebel, un amas de ruines partiellement envahies par des buissons. Les membres de la Mission archéologique française ont reconnu ces ruines en mai 1978, sans pouvoir pousser leur examen au-delà d'une étude sommaire des vestiges actuellement visibles de l'édifice: il n'a pas été possible de procéder à un nettoyage, ni au déplacement des blocs écroulés, ni à des travaux de sondage ou de fouille. Toutefois l'architecte de la mission, Gilbert Hallier, a pris à cette occasion les mesures et les croquis de tous les éléments accessibles, ce qui lui a fourni une base d'étude suffisante pour proposer une interprétation et une restauration graphique du monument. Il s'agit d'un grand pigeonnier construit en pierre de taille, avec beaucoup de soin. C'est jusqu'à présent le seul bâtiment de ce genre qui ait été signalé en Cyrénaïque. R. G. Goodchild avais déjà remarqué cet amas de ruines. Il n'avait pas échappé à S. Stucchi, qui lui a consacré quelques lignes dans son ouvrage magistral Architettura Cirenaica en 1975. Voici comment il le décrit (p. 519): ‘una grande colombaia circolare in muratura di grossi blocchi, che all' interno presentano file regolari di nicchiette per in nidi’. L'étude de G. Hallier confirme pleinement ce que S. Stucchi avait justement noté. Elle permet désormais de proposer de ce colombier une image précise qui enrichit notre connaissance du paysage rural en Cyrénaïque.

Problems connected with the supply of water to Libya's expanding urban connurbations are described. The constraints imposed by the arid climate have obliged Libya to place great reliance on the exploitation of groundwater reserves and in the most populous, northern regions these are becoming seriously depleted. The long-term safeguarding of the water supply and its possible augmentation to meet rising demand depends on current, expensive, investment. The most ambitious scheme is for a ‘man-made river’ in which water from the country's southern underground reserves will be carried in pipelines to the northern coastal region. Further investment is also being made in desalination plants, whilst additional improvements are recommended in the metering and maintenance of water supply installations. The degree of success of these ventures have vital implications for Libya's future agricultural and urban development.

In the period 1980 to 1982 the Libyan authorities began planning for the economic and social development of the country to the year 2000. This article examines the special factors that influenced the formulation of the Sabha regional plan. Particular attention is focussed on the background for oil exports and income and the impact this had on official attitudes to economic planning in Libya. The various options proposed for the Sabha regional plan are examined together with their implications for agriculture, which was used in the plan as the sector into which all other developments were tied to give an integrated and truely regional plan for change.