In recent years basic regional geological mapping of northern Libya by the Industrial Research Centre, Tripoli, together with the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey of eastern Tripolitania and the work of the author and Dr S. M. Ghellali in the Jifarah Plain and Jabal Nafusah, have greatly added to our knowledge of Quaternary deposits in the region. This work is described and evaluated against the background of earlier studies. The succession of major depositional, soil forming and erosional events which characterise the fluvio-aeolian deposits of the Jifarah Formation can be recognised in, and thus used to subdivide, laterally equivalent aeolianite, fangravel and wadi gravel deposits in the Jifarah Plain. Comparisons of this succession with others from throughout the region indicate that the events are of regional significance and that the Jifarah sequence provides a sound framework for lithostratigraphic correlation and a basis for facies analysis and chronostratigraphic studies.

This review is largely limited to the northern margins of Libya north of the 30th parallel (Fig. 1). It is convenient to subdivide the zone into several regions. These are:

(a) The Jifarah Plain and foothills of the Jabal Nafusah.

(b) The Hammada Al Hamra Plateau and major valleys of eastern Tripolitania.

(c) The coastal region from Misratah to Ajdabiyah.

(d) Cyrenaica from Soluq to Al Bardia.

In the 15 years following the Second World War, the available data on the prehistory of North Africa were summarised in a series of major syntheses (notably Alimen 1955; Balout 1955; Ford-Johnston 1959; and Vaufrey 1955). With stratified sequences few and far between, radiometric techniques of absolute dating still at the developmental stage, and little detailed information on palaeoenvironments, it was inevitable that the emphasis of all these studies was on the description and classification of the archaeological record, and its organisation into regional cultural sequences. As far as Libya was concerned, the prehistoric rock carvings of the Fezzan were already well known, particularly from the studies by Graziosi before the war (Graziosi 1934; 1937; 1942), but in terms of artifact assemblages Libyan prehistory was much less understood than the prehistoric sequences of the Maghreb to the west and accordingly much less represented in the syntheses of the 1950s. In general, the prehistory of North Africa was described as a succession of ‘cultural groups’ that were correlated more or less with the better-documented palaeolithic, mesolithic, and neolithic sequences of Europe.

During the 1960s, two major studies of Libyan prehistory were published which have had a dominating influence on research in the following 20 years. The first was the publication by Charles McBurney (1967) of the deep stratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave on the coast of Cyrenaica. McBurney began research on the Libyan Palaeolithic in the years immediately after the war, publishing a variety of surface collections (1947), trial excavations in the Hagfet ed Dabba cave (1950), and a joint study with C. W. Hey (1955) of the relationship between Pleistocene geological and archaeological sequences in Cyrenaica. His excavations in the Haua Fteah were conducted in 1951, 1952, and 1955, the deep sounding revealing a detailed sequence of layers spanning the middle and upper palaeolithic, epipalaeolithic (or mesolithic), and neolithic occupations of the cave (for initial reports: McBurney 1960; 1961; 1962). The full report was able not only to describe the remarkable sequence of assemblages, but also to correlate these with a palaeoenvironmental sequence established from faunal, molluscan, and sedimentary studies of the cave stratigraphy, the sequence also being tied to an absolute chronology based on 20 radiocarbon determinations. The Haua Fteah stratigraphy remains unique not only in Libya but in North Africa as a whole.

The Garamantes exercised a powerful hold upon the Mediterranean imagination during the early and high Empire (Daniels 1970; Desanges 1962; Merighi 1940; Romanelli 1959; Ruprechtsburger, forthcoming). Remote and beyond the southern limits of the African provinces, they represented the mythical south, only accessible after perilous desert travel; they were inextricably interwoven in people's minds with swarming serpents, fabulous fountains and precious stones, with the silent noon tide of the terrifying desert and such inhuman creatures as men with no voices or no heads, strapfoots, Goat-Pans and Satyrs (Pliny, N.H. 5.1.7).

The reality of Roman contact with them was no less exotic. The last entry of all in the Fasti Triumphales (CIL I2, p. 50) on the Arch of Augustus in the Roman Forum commemorates a triumph celebrated on 27th March 734 A.V.C. (19 BC) by L. Cornelius Balbus, ex Africa: below, the stone surface remains rough and no further names follow. But Balbus' honour was much more noteworthy for he was not even a Roman by birth (PIR2 C1331; Thomasson 1960, 11). Like his famous uncle, Caesar's Balbus, he was a full-blooded Spaniard hailing from Cadiz (Gades) — and the only foreigner ever to be accorded a triumph, the Elder Pliny informs us (N.H. 5.5.36). His rise to fame came about through a steadfast devotion to Caesar's cause, for which he was ultimately rewarded by Augustus with consular rank (Velleius 2.51.3), and became Proconsul of Africa in ?20 BC (Syme 1939, 80, 235, 325, 339, 367).

En 1953, j'avais exprimé le voeu que les antiquités de la Cyrénaïque, que les archéologues italiens avaient si remarquablement étudiées entre 1912 et 1942, fussent à nouveau l'objet de recherches régulières, dès que les épreuves dues à la guerre auraient été surmontées. Ce voeu a été pleinement exaucé. Dès la fin des hostilités, comme j'avais pu le constater sur place en janvier–février 1946, puis en mai–juin 1947, l'Administration militaire britannique avait pris en charge la sauvegarde des monuments et des sites. L'oeuvre réalisée par les responsables successifs de cette administration, à travers mille difficultés et avec des moyens modestes, fut fort efficace. A partir de 1953, elle fut poursuivie et développée par R. G. Goodchild, nommé Controller of Antiquities pour la Cyrénaïque dans le cadre du nouvel Etat libyen. Il suscita et contrôla la reprise des recherches sur le terrain, en même temps qu'il créait de toutes pièces un Service des antiquités dont les jeunes archéologues libyens, en grande partie formés par lui, fournirent les cadres. Avec leur concours, il exécuta lui-même des fouilles, des restaurations de monuments, des prospections à travers le pays, conduites avec une méthode exemplaire, en particulier à Cyrène et à Apollonia. Les missions étrangères, accueillies avec faveur, ouvrirent des chantiers: les Britanniques à Benghazi et à Tocra, les Américains à Ptolémaïs, les Français à Apollonia. Mais surtout la mission archéologique italienne, animée par S. Stucchi, revint travailler à Cyrène à partir de 1958 et, depuis trente ans, accomplit un admirable travail de publication dans tous les domaines, exploitant à Cyrène les fouilles antérieures, en les complétant par des sondages, et procédant parallèlement à la reconstruction des monuments quand l'état des ruines le permet.

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.

During the past two decades all the major cities of Cyrenaica have seen new fieldwork, and much has been achieved. The Department of Antiquities has been active, particularly in the increasingly important area of rescue archaeology. Its resolute and skilful efforts have included very important work at Shahat (Cyrene) (Walker (in Walda and Walker), this volume) and at Benghazi (Berenice). At the latter city, one of the least known in Cyrenaica, the Department's excavations at Sidi Khrebish demonstrated the rich archaeological potential of the site and led to the large-scale campaigns of 1971-5, in which the Society for Libyan Studies was deeply involved.

Generous support has also been extended to British teams at Euesperides (Berenice's predecessor), Driana (Hadrianopolis), Tocra (Tauchira) and Tolmeita (Ptolemais); to the Italian Mission, whose work at Cyrene has proceeded throughout the period; to the major American investigation of the extra-mural Demeter sanctuary at the same site; and to the French Mission, which has conducted annual campaigns at Susa (Apollonia) since 1976. There has also been productive research into the minor towns.

Perhaps the outstanding feature of the period under review, however, has been publication. No less than thirteen major site reports (see bibliography under Apollonia, Berenice, Cirene, Cyrene and Tocra), several works of synthesis (Goodchild 1971; Huskinson 1975; Rosenbaum and Ward-Perkins 1980; Stucchi 1975), collected papers (Goodchild 1976) and a profusion of shorter studies in journals, conference proceedings (Barker, Lloyd and Reynolds 1985; Gadallah 1971; Stucchi and Luni 1987) and exhibition publications (Missione Italiana 1987) have appeared — a very rich harvest. Many of course, had their genesis in earlier research, particularly during the fecund years of Richard Goodchild's controllership. Amongst much else, this saw Boardman and Hayes' exemplary Tocra project, which in its use of quantification, scientific analysis and other techniques anticipated later British and American work; the University of Michigan's extensive research at Apollonia; and the inauguration of the Italian Mission, under S. Stucchi, to Cyrene (Stucchi 1967), whose work on the architectural development, art and anastylosis of the city continues to make an outstanding contribution to our appreciation of Libya's archaeology and cultural heritage.

The manifest achievement of the colonial epoch in the Maghreb was the clearance and, in places, restoration of the great archaeological heritage that awaited investigation in North Africa. To the near exclusion of other themes such as agriculture and the economy, the images of magnificent classical ruins have sprung from the pages of many books, and for better or worse, shaped the mentality of the previous generation and also of that which followed after the Second World War.

Nowhere was this more true than the great coastal cities of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, unearthed and re-erected on a tide of pre-war cultural imperatives. To some extent the wealth of outstandingly well preserved urban remains (associated with an abundance of epigraphic evidence) at the time militated against the refinement of research objectives. It fell to archaeologists working in the colonial twilight of the post-war period, first, to assay the publication backlog and, second, to deepen the level of investigation along lines that were becoming familiar elsewhere through the increasingly sophisticated stratigraphic analysis of urban sites.

In the post-war years the first strand saw, for example, the final publication of the Severan harbour and the market at Lepcis Magna (Degrassi 1951, Bartoccini 1958; for the city as a whole see Bianchi Bandinelli et al. 1966 and Squarciapino 1966); and this continues today with the publication of the work of Kenyon and Ward-Perkins (Kenrick 1986) and various Italian teams (Joly and Tomasello 1984) at Sabratha and at Lepcis (Caputo 1987; Ward-Perkins 1989). The Kenyon and Ward-Perkins excavation at Sabratha, with its sophisticated stratigraphic methods, marked a significant movement into the second area of increasingly searching analysis of archaeological sequences on multi-period sites. For a variety of reasons — logistical, financial and methodological — archaeological investigation effectively remained at that level until 1969, the starting point for this survey of the emporia and the less well-known towns of Tripolitania.

To mark the twentieth year of publication of the Report of the Society for Libyan Studies, selective bibliographies have been compiled of publications of ancient art and architecture in Tripolitania (H. Walda) and Cyrenaica (S. Walker). Particular attention has been given to sculpture and architecture of the Punic, Greek and Roman periods. Byzantine and Islamic works are regretfully excluded. Brief overviews of the direction of recent research precede the bibliographies. To conform with the ‘house style’ of Libyan Studies, the bibliographies have been edited using the Harvard reference system.

Since 1968 the number of inscriptions newly found in Libya has been limited by the limited scale of excavations; but there has been some compensation from the results of surface surveys and from chance discoveries, especially in rural areas. Although the individual items are not necessarily stirring, they form, when taken together, a valuable base for study of the rural populations, at least within the city territories or near to the Roman forts.

There has been, indeed, a steady stream of articles on inscriptions, or using inscriptions. Together with some new texts, they have presented many new readings and interpretations of ones previously published. In addition four small corpora have appeared: of the inscriptions of Apollonia (Reynolds 1976, 293–333), of Berenice (Reynolds 1977, 233–254), of the Jewish inhabitants of Cyrenaica (Lüderitz 1983), and of the Neo-Punic texts of Tripolitania known by 1967 (Levi della Vida and Amadasi Guzzo 1987).

Another feature of the twenty years has been the intermittent publication of bibliographies of work in progress (Garbini 1974 (Neo-Punic), Gasperini and Paci 1975, Paci 1979 (Cyrenaica and Tripolitania), Reynolds 1972, 1980a (Cyrenaica), Le Glay 1974 (Tripolitania)). These, together with the running records produced approximately every year (L'Année Epigraphique, L'Année Philologique, Bulletin Epigraphique (in REG), SEG), obviate the need to do more here than note what seems to me to show best where the epigraphic contribution is leading us. The selection is inevitably much influenced by my current interests; it is not at all intended to suggest that what is omitted is lacking in importance.

Du Ier au VIIème siècle ap. J.-C, pendant la pÉriode romaine et byzantine, la Libye a connu une vie agricole originale et intense. Ce fait de civilisation n'attire l'attention des savants que depuis peu d'annÉes. Même si l'importance des vestiges archÉologiques n'avait pas ÉchappÉ aux voyageurs europÉens (Pacho 1828, 236) et arabes (El Hachaichi 1912, 60), les jugements Émis sur la valeur agricole de la Libye relevaient d'opinions prÉconçues, soit pour vanter l'intÉrêt du pays, soit au contraire pour le minimiser, dans le contexte de l'Époque coloniale (de Martino 1912, 145). De plus, tout l'intÉrêt Était orientÉ vers la façade côtière, sans beaucoup de considÉration pour l'immense zone intÉrieure.

Une mise au point s'avère donc nècessaire, en partant des donnÉes physiques et humaines observables, en cherchant à retrouver des formes d'amÉnagement, des types d'exploitation, afin de dÉterminer les grandes lignes de l'Évolution historique (Laronde 1986).

Différentiation zonale

Il convient de rappeler d'abord que la Libye s'Étend sur 1.760.000 km2 environ, et que sa façade mÉditerranÉenne mesure 1900 km de longueur. En fait, l'Étendue des zones dÉsertiques fausse toute apprÉciation objective et a conduit à des opinions très divergentes et toujours arbitraires; il faut donc recourir à une analyse des donnÉes physiques pour commencer. La morphologie se caractÉrise par la prÉdominance des plaines, des plateaux et des vallÉes, les communications sont gÉnÉralement aisÉes, en dÉpit de l'ampleur des distances.

The past two decades have seen dramatic changes of perspective and an explosion of new information in the broad fields covered by this overview. Within the constraints of space allowed it is not possible to cover all aspects or to mention all relevant publications. References to pre-1969 work have been kept to a minimum, except where dramatic revision of older views is now necessary.

The traditional picture of the Roman frontier in Tripolitania owes an incalculable debt to the pioneering work of Richard Goodchild. Much of his observation remains of the highest value (accessible particularly through the volume of collected articles (edited by Joyce Reynolds), Goodchild 1976), but in the 40 years since his initial work on the limes Tripolitanus (1949a/b; 1950a/b; Ward-Perkins and Goodchild 1949) the available body of data has increased greatly and the conceptual framework for interpreting it has changed considerably (the scale of the reappraisal may be judged by comparing Brogan and Smith 1957 and 1985). The most controversial aspects of Goodchild's work concern the date of the development of a frontier in Tripolitania and the interpretation of the fortified farms which are so characteristic of the zone: ‘…no traces of a pre-Severan limes have yet been found. In this respect it may be significant that the linear fossata which Baradez has proved to constitute the central feature of the Numidian limes, and which he tentatively dated to the Hadrianic period, have not yet been found in the area of modern Tripolitania … Apart from … the outer fortresses of Gheriat el-Garbia and Bu Ngem … the military works of the limes Tripolitanus seem to have consisted almost exclusively of fortified farmhouses occupied by Libyan limitanei.’ (Goodchild 1950 = 1976, 44).

In the context of the North African littoral Cyrenaica and Tripolitania appear almost as fertile islands, surrounded by desert on three sides and the Mediterranean to the north (Fig. 1). Between Cyrenaica and Egypt the desert runs to the sea, while between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania lies desert which stretches up to the shores of the Gulf of Sirte. Only to the west of Tripolitania is there a thin coastal strip of cultivable land which runs past the island of Djerba, turning north past Gabes to the productive lands of central Tunisia. As the crow flies only some 350 miles (450 km) separate Berenice (Benghazi), the most westerly of the cities of Cyrenaica from Lepcis Magna, her nearest neighbour among the Tripolitanian cities. While a land-route existed along the north African coast, the destinations it offered were clearly limited. Transport by sea not only offered the opportunity for the most economical long distance movement of bulk commodities such as grain, olive-oil and wine — the staples of the ancient world — but it also presented a greater range of possible destinations.

In the course of the two decades since 1969, archaeological and architectural investigations relating to the Islamic period in Libya have made sufficient progress for it to be possible now to see the country's Islamic antiquities with a reasonable degree of perspective within Libya and in relation to a broader context. Nevertheless, a great deal of work remains to be done, both with regard to extending the geographical scope of research on Islamic Libya and to studying relatively neglected periods. At present we are better informed about certain Fāṭimid monuments in Libya than any other Islamic buildings in the country. While the importance of Libya in the tenth and eleventh centuries AD is a matter of great interest, it must not be forgotten that even today, we know very much less in detail about the mosques and houses of later times. A marked imbalance therefore exists in the relative degree of information available for an account of the Islamic archaeology and architecture of Libya in the period as a whole. This imbalance is very clear in the present survey.

The extent of the increase in knowledge of the Islamic archaeology of Libya becomes immediately clear by referring to K. A. C. Creswell's A Bibliography of the Architecture, Arts and Crafts of Islam to 1st Jan. 1960 and the Supplements to it (Creswell 1973; Pearson et al. 1984). In his original Bibliography Creswell found nothing on Libyan architecture except for some studies on Tripoli. Even in the 1960s, very little further research on the Islamic period was published, although it was in this period that Ajdābiyah and Madīnah Sulṭān were initially investigated: this work formed the foundation of that which was to follow after 1969. Bys the time that the latest Supplement to Creswell's Bibliography appeared in 1984, a plethora of published material had emerged as a result of the sharp rise of interest in Islamic Libya during the period from 1969 onwards. As a result, no comprehensive survey of Islamic archaeology and architecture in North Africa written in the future will be complete without giving some account of the information that has been accumulated during the period 1969 to 1989.