As a contribution to the Society for Libyan Studies’ 50th anniversary, the paper discusses three projects in which the author has been involved, with a focus on their different contributions to our understanding of Libya's landscape prehistory and history. The deep stratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave in three projects are described in chronological order, but they contribute in reverse order to our understanding of how Libyans have changed and been changed by their landscapes. The deep stratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica represents an intermittent history of landscape use, and the way people dealt with climate change impacts, from some 150,000 years ago to the Graeco-Roman period. The faunal assemblage from Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi, provides insights into how Graeco-Roman city-dwellers interacted with the people of the countryside. The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey changes the perspective, showing how tribal people in the pre-desert were drawn into the ambit of the coastal cities and the economy of imperial Rome, before returning to semi-mobile pastoral/arable lifeways not so dissimilar to the lives of many Libyans before the oil revolution. The principal linking finding is that there are no simple stories from the past in terms of people's relations to their landscape: the mix of structure and agency embodied in the archaeological record can be a record of failures, misguided decisions, bad luck etc. as much as of successful responses and adaptations to opportunities and challenges.

The excavations conducted at Euesperides between 1999 and 2007 under the auspices of the Society for Libyan Studies, London, and the Department of Antiquities, Libya, and jointly directed by Paul Bennet and Andrew Wilson, brought to light private houses and a building complex, industrial areas related to purple dye production and part of the city's fortification wall. Among the finds was a highly significant body of local, regional and imported pottery (from the Greek and Punic world, Cyprus, Italy and elsewhere), dated between the last quarter of the seventh and the middle of the third century BC, when the city was abandoned.

This archaeological project adopted an innovative approach to the study of pottery from the site, based on the total quantification of the coarse, fine wares and transport amphorae. This was supplemented by a targeted programme of petrographic analysis to shed light on production centres and thus questions about the trade and the economy of ancient Euesperides. The pottery study by K. Göransson, K. Swift and E. Zimi demonstrated that although the city gradually developed a significant industry of ceramics, it relied heavily on imports to cover its needs and that imported pottery reached Euesperides’ sheltered harbour either directly from the supplying regions or most often through complex maritime networks in the Mediterranean which changed over time.

Cooking pots from Aegina and the Punic world, mortaria, bowls, jugs and table amphorae from Corinth as well as transport amphorae from various centres containing olive oil, wine, processed meat and fish were transported to the city from Greece, Italy/Sicily, Cyprus and elsewhere. The so-called amphorae B formed the majority, while Corinthian, Aegean (Thasian, Mendean, Knidian, etc.), Greco-Italic and Punic were adequatly represented. Regarding fine wares, East Greek, Laconian and Corinthian are common until the end of the sixth century; Attic black-glazed, and to a lesser extend, black-figure and red-figure pots dominate the assemblages between the fifth and the mid-third centuries BC, while Corinthian, Italian/Sicilian and Punic seem to have been following the commodities flow at Euesperides from the fourth century BC onwards. Finally, Cyrenaican pottery and transport amphorae have been also identified at Euesperides implying a considerable volume of inter-regional trade.

This contribution explores a key dimension of the work of the Society for Libyan Studies concerning the archaeology of Libya's Protohistoric and early historic periods (broadly first millennium BC and first millennium AD). This primarily concerns the archaeology of rural landscapes (including the desert) and the investigation of the ancient Libyan populations that inhabited them. Taking an autobiographical approach, I review the contributions to developing research agendas made by a number of research projects that I have been involved in. The results collectively have advanced knowledge and understanding not only of this aspect of ancient Libyan society, but also have important implications for the construction of Libyan identity and the management of its heritage today. More broadly, they constitute an important contribution to wider re-evaluation of Maghribian and Saharan societies in the Iron Age and Roman periods.

The Society for Libyan Studies has been in the forefront of research and writing on the modern history of Libya. The example was set by the first president of the society, Sir Duncan Cumming. Following the defeat of Axis forces in North Africa in 1942–43, he was closely involved with the British military administration of Libya. In this role he was instrumental in establishing local self-government and lobbying for Libyan independence, finally achieved in 1951. In retrospect it is clear that he also laid the groundwork for the study of the emergence of Libya as a modern state. Historians and members of the SLS, such as John Wright, have followed suit and have made major contributions through their books and articles to our understanding of the history of Libya. Long may this continue.

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.

This paper considers some of the general issues relating to the history of exploration in the Libyan (Western) Desert. These issues are: why there have been remarkably few books on desert exploration; the despised role of the motor car which was so important in the exploration of the Libyan Desert; the longevity of some explorers, the prominent role of women in Islamic travels; the great deal of time – sometimes years – that some of the explorers spent in the field; the role of indigenous people; the parts played by professionals, and amateurs; the undertaking of scientific work of high quality, not least in the field of geomorphology; and the international nature of exploration.

This article provides a brief summary of the aims, methods and results of a programme of training carried out by the EAMENA project in partnership with the Tunisian Institut National du Patrimoine and the Libyan Department of Antiquities. The focus was on the use of freely available satellite imagery for archaeological site identification and monitoring, on compiling and maintaining spatial databases - including the on-the-ground location of sites with the use of a GPS - and on the observation of patterns of preservation and threat within Geographical Information Systems to inform heritage management decisions at both regional and national levels. Three pairs of workshops took place in Tunis in 2017, 2018 and 2019, with interim support being given to participants by a Training Manager and Research Assistant based at the University of Leicester. The work was part of a larger scheme offered to heritage professionals across the Middle East and North Africa by the EAMENA project thanks to a grant received from the Cultural Protection Fund. In general this training has been very well received. Not only has it successfully achieved the propagation of desirable and much needed skills within partner institutions, it has also raised awareness of issues affecting the protection of cultural heritage within the broader community.

The Middle Draa Project (2015–18) is a pioneering survey of the archaeology of a c.200 km long valley at the northern edge of the Moroccan Sahara. Combining mapping from satellite imagery, field survey and trial excavation, the project has established a new baseline for the region's archaeological heritage. This paper concentrates on the main results in relation to the Protohistoric (Iron Age) phase, when the first steps towards sedentarisation and oasis agriculture appear to have been taken.

This paper presents an update on the development of the Society for Libyan Studies archive. We begin with a brief reminder about the history of the archive and its current location, moving on to explain the challenging cataloguing process and future plans for digitisation, of both the catalogue and the physical contents of the archive. We also look at the potential of the archive for researchers and outline a few projects that recently benefited from its reorganisation.

The new digital technologies have become an effective tool for researchers in different fields. Historians and archaeologists who are studying Greek and Roman Libya have benefited from technical developments in presenting different kinds of data, particularly relating to the epigraphy and toponymy of Libya. They have recently published several resources, and are working on more. This study presents the story of how scholars have collected a variety of Libyan heritage materials and published them online; the account makes it clear that these digital projects are the result of extensive and ongoing collaboration between researchers from different countries, including Libya. They have worked together, and are still working to produce valuable online corpora of inscriptions alongside the Heritage Gazetteer of Libya which records names used at different times, and in a variety of languages, of heritage sites. We also discuss plans for further improving the accessibility of these materials, and encouraging their wider use.

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.

This article investigates water supply systems in Cyrenaica during both the Greek and Roman periods. Beginning with some general information on water supply systems in Cyrenaica's other cities, it goes on to describe aqueducts and water cisterns recorded during the Cyrene Archaeological Surveys (CAS) around Cyrene in 2015 and 2017. The article explains how water was stored and delivered to the city of Cyrene in antiquity and offers a wider discussion on water distribution in Cyrene in the Greek era and how water supply systems developed through time, moving into the Roman period.

The ancient landscapes surrounding Cyrene, which have been incredibly well preserved for centuries, have suffered more destructions in the past 7 or 8 years than in the whole of the last millennium. Urban encroachment, strong demographic pressure, unsustainable exploitation of resources and unplanned growth of infrastructures and services are threatening the archaeological heritage of this splendid site. The Department of Antiquities (DoA) has always struggled against these phenomena, but today the destructions are so great that the DoA is often powerless to act. This paper continues previous works on the damage to the Cyrenean necropoleis after 2011(Abdulkariem and Bennett, 2014; Al Raeid et al. 2016; Menozzi, Di Valerio et al. 2017; Menozzi, Tamburrino et al. 2017) and proposes strategies to help, on the basis of a preliminary report organised by the Mission of the University of Chieti in collaboration with the Departments of Antiquities of Cyrene and Tripoli, as requested by UNESCO. This preliminary step towards further improvements and needs to be discussed with other institutions and missions. The first part presents a proposal for controlling the core and buffer zones around Cyrene; the second part is an update on the recent damages to the necropoleis.

The Western Necropolis represents one of the most monumental and spectacular sections of the Cyrene cemeteries, with rock-cut monuments, still quite well preserved, along a funerary road. The earliest examples of monumental tombs in this context date to the second half of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries BC, with tombs displaying rock-cut porticos in Doric, Aeolic or Ionic styles, and with the slightly later tombs having architectonic facades characterized by false ‘contracted’ porticos and overhanging lintels ending with two acroteria, mainly dating to the fifth century. The fourth century and the Hellenistic age, in this section of the necropolis, is attested by rock-cut chamber tombs, often with painted Doric friezes, and loculi. In Roman times, apart from a few examples of new tombs, most of the Roman funerary monuments reuse earlier tombs or are tombs that have been in constant use from previous periods. These phenomena of transformation and reuse of earlier monuments are quite well know for Cyrene, but are more evident from the middle and late imperial period; in later periods we even see the total re-functionalization of the monument. The monumental appearance of the Western Necropolis and its location in a quite remote area, are unfortunately the main reasons for the destruction of the tombs, which have been quite heavily looted: marble statues, busts and portraits have particularly suffered.

This article provides the edition and commentary of two Punic inscriptions of Roman imperial date from inland areas of Tripolitania. One is the first edition of a Punic funerary text written in Latin script from Bani Walid in the Werfalla district. The other is a discussion offering an alternative interpretation of two architectural blocks bearing a fragmentary dedication that were recovered from the vicinity of the mausoleum of Gasr Doga in the Tarhuna district. Both texts shed new light on aspects of the cultural dynamics of Libyco-Punic culture under Roman rule.

The so-called ‘catalogue of tribes’ in Corippus, Iohannis, II.28–161 is central to the historical ethnography of Moorish North Africa in Late Antiquity, yet the sources behind this passage and its poetic function have never been directly addressed. The present paper argues that Corippus derived this material from the trophies carried in the triumphal procession that marked the successful conclusion of John Troglita's campaigns in 548. The evocation of this ceremony at the outset of Corippus’ narrative corresponds to the ironic tone which permeates the work, but also explains the eccentric form of the material included within the catalogue. The paper concludes with some observations about the implications of this for modern understanding of Moorish ‘tribal’ society in the later Roman and early Byzantine period.

From the Musée Algérien established at the Louvre in Paris by Captain Delamare, to the Bibliothèque-musée created by A. Berbrugger in 1838 in the former Janissaries barracks in Algiers, to the short-lived Musée Africain, the archaeological collections of Algeria did not have a real museum space until 19 April 1897, when the Musée des Antiquités Algériennes et d'Art Musulman was inaugurated in the Parc de Galland (today the Parc de la Liberté). Independent Algeria placed the museum under the Ministère de l’éducation nationale until 1970, and then it was moved to the Ministère de l'information et de la culture, and the Musée Stéphane Gsell became the Musée National des Antiquités, financially autonomous in 1985 under the Ministère de la culture. Have the true missions of a museum been fulfilled? And what is the situation at the Louvre where only a few ancient Algerian works are now on display?