Two seasons of work have now been conducted by British and French survey teams, in conjunction with members of the Libyan Antiquities Department, under the charge of Dr. Abdullah Shaiboub. The objectives of the survey are to locate, survey and analyse the extensive remains of the ancient agricultural settlements that can be found in the wadis of the hinterlands of Tripolitania and the Sirtica. Within the framework established by the Department in cooperation with Unesco lies the archaeological aim of recording the evidence for periods when extensive areas of the pre-desert were, for whatever reasons, cultivated in ways that are not similarly practised today. In the longer term the programme is designed to locate those areas where modern farming might be re-established. Archaeology is thus brought into line with the aims of the modern world.

For the purposes of this report we intend to concentrate on the period which we call the Romano/Libyan in which the great majority of those farming settlements flourished. The prehistoric evidence is in any case mainly of the palaeolithic period, on which there is a separate section.

The preferred zone of settlement in Tripolitania has traditionally been the well watered coastal plain and the adjacent limestone hills of the Tarhuna Gebel as far south as the town of Beni Ulid, for these regions have more than 200 mm of rain a year, regarded as the threshold for settled farming without irrigation. Prehistoric settlement concentrated here, and mixed farming has probably characterised this zone from the fourth millennium b.c. In the Roman period the coastal cities like Sabratha and Leptis Magna were supported by prosperous farms on the plain and in the Gebel. In the Islamic period, too, the same region was densely settled.

I give below the texts of two new military inscriptions from Cyrenaica with one published earlier and now reread. They are of some interest both for the history of the Roman army and for the history of the province.

1. Limestone stele (width 0.61 m × height 1.35 m × depth 0.27 m) inscribed on one face which is very worn on the lefthand side, where it has been exposed to the weather. Found in 1970 by Mr. Abdussalem Bazama, half-buried on the east bank of the Wadi Kambish just west of the city of Ptolemais, beside the road which leads from the city through the surviving gate in the west wall. Left in situ.

Letters, probably Augustan/Julio/Claudian: 1. 1, 0.07; 11.2, 3, c. 0.05; 1. 4, 0.075. A gable is outlined in relief above the text.

C(aio) Sempronio C(aii) f(ilio)

Longo duplicar(io)

c(o)hortis Hispanor(um)

vacat

vac. Venusta lib(erta) vac.

2. Limestone stele (width 0.45 m × height 1.07 m × depth 0.35 m) inscribed on one face. Photographed at Cyrene in 1929, but without record of the fmdspot; now in Cyrene Museum.

Letters, probably Augustan/Julio/Claudian, 0.05.

M(arcus) Aemiliu[s]

M(arci) f(ilius) Macer

Turanicu[s]

ỊẠṚỊ me(n)s(or) c(o)h[o]-

rtis Hispan-

orum an(n)o-

[r]um XXXX aer-

a XIIX frạ[ter]

vac. hie [posuit]

1.4 the first four letters are enigmatic (for suggestions on their meaning see p. 00); 1.5 it is just possible that the figure I stands between cohortis and Hispanorum, but 1 think it unlikely.

There are, in the gardens of the Department of Antiquities at Cyrene, two well preserved grain mills which probably date to the early Imperial Roman period. The context and location of their discovery within Cyrene is not known and their dating must rely on parallels from elsewhere. Moreover, it cannot be certain that each catillus (upper millstone) originally belonged with the meta (lower millstone) with which it is now associated, although it seems likely in view of their compatible sizes.

Both grain mills are of hard, grey, vesicular volcanic lava and were certainly imported into Cyrenaica, which has a purely sedimentary geology and no rock suitable for intensive grinding. A study of millstones in Cyrenaica would for this reason provide important information about the trade in millstones in the eastern Mediterranean region. This subject has received little attention to date, but has considerable potential, particularly in the light of Peacock's recent study (1980) of the complex and wide ranging Roman millstone trade in the central Mediterranean region. It was in this context that a sample was taken from the catillus of each grain mill and examined in thin section using a petrological microscope.

InA Hole in the Heavens, the history of Cyrene which he had under preparation at the time of his death, and now published in its unfinished state in his memorial volume, Richard Goodchild, writing about the Beechey Brothers expedition to Libya in 1821–2, stated “Unfortunately a large number of their drawings had to be omitted from the published volume for reasons of economy, and if these unpublished drawings still exist, their present whereabouts are not known”. Further on, on the same page, Goodchild added “The modern investigator of ancient Cyrene would gladly sacrifice nine-tenths of the Beecheys' narrative in return for those plans and drawings which were omitted from the published report”. A small packet of some of these plans and drawings has come to light in the library of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities of the British Museum; it is not known how or when they were acquired. Which of the Beechey brothers was the main draughtsman of these documents is unclear: the packet is labelled “Wm. Beechey's Monus. of the Pentapolis Cyrenaica — Africa”; one brother was Frederick William and the other was Henry William. Most of the drawings are plans, and it seems that Frederick Beechey was more concerned with that aspect of che work than his more artistically inclined brother.

The store rooms of the Department of Antiquities at Apollonia contain pottery from excavations at Apollonia and Ras el Hilal, together with a few stray finds from other sites (including some from the sea collected by the Royal Air Force Aqualung Society in the 1950s and early 1960s). The bulk of this material dates in the later Roman period (i.e. sixth century A.D. onwards), but includes a little earlier Roman and some Hellenistic pottery. There is a representative selection of coarse wares, including amphoras, as yet unpublished. These are mainly in fragmentary condition but their typological range conforms with that from the well stratified and dated excavations at Berenice-Benghazi (Riley, in press).

Publication of the more complete of these amphoras seems justified as there is a relative scarcity of published information on Roman amphoras from the eastern Mediterranean, at a time when many eastern types are being recognised in western Mediterranean excavated contexts (Panella, 1974; Hayes, 1976a; Riley, 1981). In addition, a brief consideration of the other amphoras helps to illustrate the diversity of trade in liquid agricultural produce within the eastern Mediterranean region. No locally made amphoras were noted on the Apollonia stone: all were imported into Cyrenaica.

The Hellenistic period is represented by Rhodian (Inv. Nos. 321, 322 and 1582) and Knidian (Inv. Nos. 141 and 723) amphora fragments. There are several sherds of early Imperial amphoras, and attention has been drawn to these by Panella (1974). These include a first to second century A.D. Aegean type (ibid., 477, Ostia Form LXIII; Apollonia Box 2036, from Ras el Hilal); a Spanish garum amphora of the same period (ibid., 513, Ostia Form LXIII; Apollonia Inv. No. 256); several Tripolitanian amphoras of the first and second centuries A.D. (ibid., 562, Ostia Form LXIV; Apollonia Inv. Nos. 253, 254, 315 and 317); and a common Aegean amphora of the third and fourth centuries A.D. (ibid., 597, Ostia Form VI).

Over ninety-seven per cent of Libya's water for agricultural and other uses came from groundwater in 1980 (Pallas). By then it was obvious that the renewable water in the coastal aquifers was seriously depleted and would not be sufficient to sustain the levels of water use implied by the national agricultural development plans. Meanwhile the potential of the southern aquifers had become apparent through their development in Kufrah, Sarir and Fezzan.

The Gefara Plain has always been the major agricultural area of the country and until 1973, both before and after independence, had always attracted the bulk of public and private investment in irrigation. The decline in the level of the coastal groundwater was observed, or predicted, by all hydro-geologists who looked at the Gefara Plain after 1950, although it should be remarked that the observations were made on the basis of imprecise and unrepresentative data. Even by 1980 figures on groundwater recharge (estimated from landuse and assumed pumping levels) were numerous and inconsistent making it difficult for policy makers to determine the economies required and the measures necessary to achieve the optimum management of water resources. Depending upon which estimates of recharge and withdrawal were used, the amount by which withdrawal exceeded recharge varied from three to eight times.

In these circumstances it was obviously prudent to attempt to determine the water balance from the Gefara Plain, and to this end a study was commissioned by FAO, on behalf of the Secretariat of Agriculture in Tripoli, for a study of recent satellite imagery to determine whether this inexpensive system of resources survey could make a contribution to planning water use in north-west Libya. By providing data on the irrigated area. From such data the water use element of the water balance equation could be estimated.

A three day conference jointly sponsored by the Society and the Middle East Centre of the School of Oriental and African Studies was held in London in July. The main purpose of the meeting was to review the development experience of the past century and to discuss the economic and social impact of the policies and investments of the numerous governments of Libya in the period. A secondary purpose was to bring together students of modern Libyan studies many of whom had not met each other before.

Some 33 papers were prepared for the meeting including an inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Emrys Peters (University of Manchester) and a contribution by Dr Graeme Barker representing the Society, which placed current development experience in a broad historical context. The range of topics treated in the formal sessions was extremely wide and if there was one theme which emerged it was that there has been a tendency for Libyan administrations, new to their role in managing natural resources, to overestimate the country's agricultural potential. Over ninety people attended the meetings including twelve from Libya and most attended the dinner on the final evening kindly provided by the Libyan Bureau in London.

Copies of the conference programme and abstracts are available from the secretary, and a limited number of the papers can be provided for members as long as stocks last. Arrangements are being made to publish most of the papers in English in London and it is hoped that papers for the third day of the conference, dealing with the period after independence, will also be published in France.