Between 1946 and 1951 Richard Goodchild carried out the fieldwork that was to result in a seminal series of articles and publications on the ancient settlements of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (Goodchild 1948; 1949a/b; 1950a/b/c/d; 1951a/b/c; 1952a/b/c; 1953; 1954c; 1971; 1976; Goodchild and Ward-Perkins 1953; Ward-Perkins and Goodchild 1949; 1953). The cartographic results appeared in 1954 as two splendid sheets in the ill-fated Tabula Imperii Romani (TIR) series at a scale of 1:1,000,000 (Goodchild 1954a/b). These twenty-two publications remain of fundamental importance to our understanding of the ancient topography of Libya.

Goodchild's map can with hindsight be seen as one of the few successes of the ill-fated TIR project. The TIR initiative aimed to produce 58 maps covering the Roman world, but huge problems have beset it all along and only 11 maps have ever appeared in definitive form. Although work continues in some areas, it must be considered improbable that this series will ever be completed (see Talbert 1992 for a thorough review of the history of the TIR).

The fact that it is now nearly 40 years since the compilation of Goodchild's two TER sheets for Libya is probably reason enough for resuming his interest in mapping ancient Libya. Much has happened in the interim to refine our knowledge of both urban and rural settlement, as a glance at the relevant volumes of Libya Antiqua, Libyan Studies and Quaderni di Archeologia delta Libia will reveal. For the study of the ancient geography and toponomy of Cyrenaica, the studies by Stucchi (1975) and Laronde (1987) are of particular importance. In addition to map corrections necessitated by the new information and perspectives, one may cite the inconvenience caused by the incompleteness of the TIR coverage to the south, east and west of the Leptis Magna and Cyrene sheets. For instance, how can we hope to understand the settlement geography of Roman Tripolitania without reference to Tunisian western Tripolitania or to the desert tribes (Phazanii, Garamantes etc)?

A historical monument may be vulnerable to earthquakes but it will be at no risk unless there is a finite probability of such an event occurring at the site during the lifetime of the structure. We define earthquake risk as follows:

Equation (1) expresses earthquake risk as a function of the seismic hazard, that is of the probability of occurrence of a damaging earthquake, or earthquakes, during the lifetime of the structure and of the vulnerability of the structure to damage or destruction by an earthquake, or earthquakes, of damaging intensity.

Seismic hazard is obviously beyond human control, but an accurate knowledge of it from seismicity studies over a long period of time is possible.

The vulnerability of modern buildings to earthquake forces is the subject-matter of engineering; it is determined by the physical characteristics of structures and it can be assessed, controlled and reduced by appropriate action, though sometimes at a cost which must be justified by a diminished probability of loss.

The vulnerability of old buildings, non-engineered structures and of historical monuments, whose dynamic characteristics are unknown and cannot easily be discovered, is difficult and quite often impossible to assess without irrecoverable intervention in the fabric of the structure.

Let us first examine the practical implications of the earthquake hazard in Libya.

Le lien étroit qui existe entre la cité et son territoire est une évidence qui a gagné en force avec le développement des recherches sur la chôra. En ce qui concerne la Libye, j'ai abordé la question lors du congrès tenu à Cambridge en 1983, et j'ai tenté de présenter une esquisse d'ensemble lors de la rencontre tenue à Paris en 1984. Si je désire m'arrêter cette fois-ci sur le territoire de Taucheira, c'est en raison de l'originalité qu'il présente parmi ceux des cités grecques de Libye. Taucheira est en effet la cité la plus ancienne après Cyrène, et sa fondation remonte certainement aux dernières années du VIIème siècle. J'ai d'autre part eu déjà l'occasion de montrer que, à l'origine, le site ne comportait aucun port naturel. Dans ces conditions, on peut légitimement se demander quel était l'intérêt de cette fondation. La question prend toute son actualité en raison de la reprise de travaux archéologiques d'ampleur grâce au Département des Antiquités de Libye avec le concours du Département d'Archéologie de l'Université Garyounis de Benghazi, sous la conduite de M. Fouad Bentaher.

Le territoire de Taucheira est bien défini, que ce soit du point de vue de la topographie, de la géologie ou de l'hydrographie.

Du point de vue topographique, le territoire de Taucheira est un élément de la plaine côtière qui prend naissance au Nord-Est au ras Tolmeita et qui s'étend jusqu'au fond de la Grande Syrte, en s'élargissant progressivement au fur et à mesure que l'on vas vers le Sud. Au Nord-Est, la côte vient baigner le pied du premier gradin. Au droit de Taucheira la plaine côtière mesure environ 4,5 km. D'une facon générale, cette plaine côtière offre toutes les caractéristiques du Sahel cyrénéen.

Since the late Sandro Stucchi organised the pioneering Urbino conference in 1981 (Stucchi and Luni 1987), the relations of the ancient Eastern Libyans with their northeastern African neighbors, whether Egyptian or Greek, have been the object of much discussion in print (Barker 1989, 31–43; Knapp 1981, 249–279; Leahy 1985, 51–65; O'Connor 1983, 271–278 and 1987, 35–37) as well as the focus of another international conference, this time organised by Anthony Leahy for the Society of Libyan Studies joined with the University of London's School of African Studies Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies (Leahy et al. 1990). The 1986 joint SOAS/Society for Libyan Studies conference concentrated on Libyan-Egyptian relations prior to the middle of the 8th century BC, which normally stand outside the immediate purview of classical archaeologists, even though the Urbino conference and the first Cambridge Colloquium organised by Joyce Reynolds in 1984 both included some discussion of the pre-Greek Libyans (Baldassarre 1987,17–24; Beltrami 1985,135–143; Tinè 1987,15–16). While this acceleration of interest would no doubt gratify Oric Bates (dead since 1918), it would also perhaps pique his curiosity even more to read that after so many years the third and second millenia BC Libyans still remain archaeologically largely undocumented (Knapp 1981, 258, 263–264; Leahy 1985, 52; O'Connor 1983, 271 and 1990, 45), especially since he himself had cause to believe that he had excavated their remains in the vicinity of Marsa Matruh (Bates 1915a, 201–207, 1915b, 158-165 and 1927, 137–140; Petrie 1915, 165–166 and 1920, 36).

[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.

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.

Lo studio prende avvio dal rinvenimento di una statuetta fittile nel Santuario cireneo di Apollo sulla Myrtousa, che riproduce un giovane in posizione stante con una cornucopia nel braccio sinistro piegato e appoggiato ad un'erma e con un oggetto nella mano destra portata in basso lungo il fianco (Fig. 1).

La terracotta è stata scoperta nel corso dei sondaggi stratigrafici eseguiti sulla fronte del Tempietto di Afrodite, situato sulla Terrazza Inferiore della Myrtousa immediatamente a Nord-Est dei Propilei Greci e ad Est del Donario degli Strateghi (Figg. 2, 11.1–2). Le ricerche, nate come parte del programma di lavoro sul propileo d'ingresso al sacro temenos, sull'area monumentale ad esso circostante e sul percorso della Via Sacra, hanno consentito di precisare la cronologia delle fasi costruttive del tempietto anche in relazione alle successive sistemazioni di questa parte della Terrazza Inferiore.

La statuetta, ricomposta da più frammenti, si conserva per un'altezza massima di cm 20 e una larghezza di cm 11,5, mancando della parte inferiore della figura a partire da poco sopra l'articolazione delle ginocchia, di gran parte della mano sinistro con l'attributo, del collo e del corpo squadrato dell'erma (Figg. 1.1–1.4).

La figura, nuda, con il mantello avvolto attorno al braccio sinistro, insiste sulla gamba destra, mentre la sinistro è leggermente divaricata e probabilmente in origine era un poco flessa. La testa, dal volto carnoso, da cui emergono i salienti del naso, della piccola bocca e del mento, è vista lievemente di tre quarti verso sinistro. La capigliatura è disposta intorno alla fronte con un addensamento di riccioli lavorati a massa. Sul torso sono ben dis-tinguibili i muscoli pettorali, l'addome con l'ombelico e la linea inguinale con il pube.

Molte città antiche utilizzarono come emblema dei primi tipi monetali prodotti vegetali o agricoli della chora che consentivano una immediata associazione con le località di provenienza delle monete. A Cirene fin dai primi conii, datati dal Robinson intorno al 560 a.C., compare il silfio, che costituisce nei diversi modi di rappresentazione (pianta, frutto, foglia, radice) il tipo principale per tutto il periodo regio.

Secondo la tradizione letteraria l'apparizione della pianta era avvenuta in occasione di una pioggia abbondante e risaliva a sette anni prima della fondazione di Cirene. L'indicazione cronologica, che coincide con la data dell'arrivo in Cirenaica degli apoikoi guidati da Batto, si riferisce evidentemente al momento della scoperta del silfio da parte dei terei.

La proposta di Evans di riconoscere la raffigurazione della pianta su alcune tavolette iscritte di Cnosso di età minoica, rivalutata di recente in seguito ai rinvenimenti a Cirene di materiale dell'età del bronzo, induce a non escludere che le proprietà della pianta fossero già note in precedenza. Ma al momento una eventuale conoscenza del silfio in età precoloniale può essere attribuita solo ai cretesi e non ai terei, che per giungere in Libya si servirono di Corobios, un pescatore di murici proprio dell'isola di Creta.

Del resto Teofrasto e Plinio indicano che per gli apoikoi guidati da Batto si trattò di una vera e propria scoperta. E poichè l'inventio non può essere intesa come l'apparizione improvvisa di una nuova pianta, dobbiamo supporre che essa avvenne con la mediazione delle popolazioni locali, il cui ruolo nelle fasi dello sbarco e della ricerca del sito adatto allo stanziamento coloniale risulta ampiamente documentato.

Alan Rowe excavated on four campaigns in the Cyrene necropoleis from 1952–1957, but his final publications were incomplete and misleading, and the original records were apparently lost prior to his death in 1968. This is an account of the attempt to re-assess what he found, and of the project to present his discoveries in a more useful form.

The importance of Rowe's work is that he was the first person to make an extensive archaeological study of the monuments and tombs of the four necropoleis of Cyrene. His predecessors in the 19th century limited their activities to a few individual tombs mainly around Wadi Haleg Shaloof and Wadi Bel Gadir. The first archaeological excavation this century, undertaken by Richard Norton in 1911 on the western slope of Wadi Haleg Shaloof (Norton 1911, 160), its extent unmatched until Rowe's campaigns forty years later, received only preliminary publication and the material found is mainly lost. The only other archaeological work undertaken in the necropoleis was by Oliverio in 1925 on Tomb N.1, whose artifacts are also now lost, and by Burton Brown who excavated two sarcophagi and a Roman burial in 1947 on the slopes of the Northern Necropolis; the artifacts discovered then have not been seen since publication (Burton Brown 1948, 148–152 figs. I–II). After Rowe's campaigns, Professor Beschi excavated two tombs in 1963 (Beschi 1972, 150–168, 186–196). There has been some survey since, but no formal excavation.

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.

There was a time when the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford was prosperous enough to support a venture which called itself the Ashmolean Expedition to Cyrenaica. The form this exercise took was the excavation over three seasons between 1952 and 1954 of parts of the site of the Greek city of Euesperides situated on the outskirts of Benghazi (Fig. 1 ).

Euesperides does not figure large in history. We first hear of it in 515 in connection with the revolt of Barca from the Persians: a punitive expedition was sent by the satrap in Egypt and it marched as far west as Euesperides. Euesperides played a part in the downfall of the Battiads, the ruling house of Cyrene. Arcesilas IV tried to create a safe haven against the day when his regime might be overthrown, and in 462 in effect refounded the city with a new body of settlers attracted from all over Greece.

The coinage of Euesperides was always minor in comparison with that of Cyrene, or even of Barca. But its sporadic issues do have an interest of their own. At this session we are also concerned with the city, and I wish to suggest what we can learn from the numismatic evidence — not just from the coins struck there, but from the coins of other mints which have been found there.

It is preferable to speak generally of the ‘coinage’ of Euesperides rather than of its ‘mint’, for it seems certain that some of the issues bearing the city's name were actually produced at Cyrene, as indeed were also some issues of Barca. The coinage of Euesperides was always small in comparison with the older and much richer coinage of Cyrene. It is instructive that the catalogue proper of Robinson's BMC Cyrenaica requires 90 pages to list the autonomous and Ptolemaic coins struck at Cyrene, 18 for those of Barca, just 4 for Euesperides.

For Euesperides there are no archaic tetradrachms, the denomination so prominent in a variety of types at Cyrene. The earliest Euesperidean coin in BMC, a drachm of types silphium/dolphin, is assigned by Robinson to before 480 BC.

Terracotta figures have been uncovered in vast quantities in the cemeteries of the Greek cities of Cyrenaica from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. While the terracottas from more recent excavations have of course remained in Libya, the majority of those brought to light in the nineteenth century are now divided between the national museums of three European capitals: Paris, Madrid and London. The Louvre collection is the largest of the three, consisting of some 400 pieces, mostly acquired by the consul M. Vattier de Bourville in the cemeteries of Cyrene and Benghazi in 1848; the majority are of the Hellenistic period, and have recently received full publication in the final volume of Mme Simone Besques' monumental catalogue. The Cyrenaican terracottas in Madrid, purchased from the collection of one Tómas Asensi in 1876, are about ninety in number, and of these roughly half are Hellenistic in date; the few given a provenance are said to come from the cemeteries of Cyrene. The Madrid terracottas were published by Alfred Laumonier in 1921, and the descriptions and photographs in his catalogue are still useful.

The British Museum has around 300 terracotta figures from Cyrenaica, of which approximately 180 whole figures or fragments can be counted as Hellenistic. The archaic and classical figures were published by Dr Reynold Higgins in the first volume of his catalogue of British Museum terracottas, while a significant proportion of the later pieces were included by H. B. Walters in his earlier catalogue. However, the entire collection of post-classical Cyrenaican material will be treated in greater detail in the new catalogue of the British Museum's Hellenistic terracottas, currently in preparation.

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).

In the summer of 1989 a new electricity cable was laid from New Shahat to the Caesareum of Cyrene, its course following the line of the road made in the 1920s through the (now largely abandoned) village of old Shahat. The construction of the road had already revealed several blocks of an engaged Doric architectural order in the unexcavated southeastern quarter of the ancient city; from the trench cut in 1989 were recovered parts of eight marble sculptures susceptible of interpretation, less identifiable fragments of other figures in marble and limestone, and a number of ashlar blocks with drafted margins cut in local limestone. Though the architectural finds suggest the presence of a substantial public building, the sculptures were apparently found packed in a row, giving the impression of having been deliberately buried during preparation for transit to a lime kiln. Without excavation no more can be said of their original context, beyond what may be gleaned from an examination of the sculptures themselves.

This paper is concerned with six of the more complete marble statues, which form an interesting, if not aesthetically distinguished group of portraits of members of the first Roman imperial family. The six survivors fall into three sub-groups, which are briefly described below; there follows an assessment of the relationship of the statues to contemporary portraits of the imperial family from Cyrene and elsewhere.

Two of the statues are carved in Pentelic marble, and are of exceptional scale. Of these the better preserved is a figure of a woman originally cut from one block to stand about 2.10 metres high but now sliced from top to base through the thicker part of the lower torso and horizontally through the whole torso into pieces 20–30 cm high, presumably to facilitate delivery, perhaps by hand, to the lime kiln (Figs 1–2). The unveiled woman is dressed in tunic and cloak, the latter swept over her left shoulder in the manner of the Kore of Praxiteles, a type well known in the Cyrenaican repertoire. The cloak is drawn far from the right side of her body, suggesting that her right forearm, now lost, was raised to hold an object (Fig. 3, right). The hair is waved to either side of a central parting, and drawn back from the face in thick tresses which are massed wide of the head to fall into a looped plait below the nape of the neck and over the edge of the cloak (Fig. 4). Around the face is a row of pin-wheel curls; there is no break in the curls at the central parting of the hair, and the curls come close to the ends of the eyebrows. The lower earlobes are exposed. The face is broad and round, with a low brow accentuated by the hairstyle, plump cheeks and a small receding chin. The nose and mouth are badly damaged, but the mouth appears small. The eyes are large, round and wide-set (Fig. 5).

During the course of work in Cyrenaica extending over the 1950s and 1960s I was asked by the late Richard Goodchild, then Controller of Antiquities, to note and comment on any architectural features which I felt to have special significance. In this way, across the years, I handed over to him various short notes with drawings of miscellaneous items that I had observed. Of one such observation a copy has come to hand recently among old papers.

While working with the Michigan Expedition to Apollonia (1965–68) I visited the late Professor Stucchi's project for re-erecting the remains of the Temple of Zeus at Cyrene, begun in 1967. During the visit I was interested to observe the detailing of a triglyph block from the peristyle entablature. This seemed to conflict with, or rather to add somewhat to the then accepted building history of the temple — i.e. a (late) Archaic Greek Temple overthrown during the Jewish Revolt and subsequently refurbished minus the peristyle.

Work on Professor Stucchi's project is not yet completed; and although he published both progress reports and some discussion of the findings, he has not, to my knowledge, given us a detailed account of the evidence for the history of the building; so perhaps my note made in 1968 remains of interest. I have left the argument as it stood, but some updating material has been added to the footnotes.

G.R.H.W.

Avignon, December 1993.

Agli inizi dell'Ottocento si assiste al sorgere e al diffondersi di particolare interesse da parte di esponenti della cultura e della diplomazia internazionale verso gli imponenti resti archeologici di Cirene e di altre città della Tripolitania e della Cirenaica, che diventano meta di visita. Nella circostanza vengono in genere compilati diari di viaggio e relazioni, spesso illustrati da disegni di monumenti antichi e talvolta anche da preziose carte topografiche in cui sono evidenziate ampie aree di affioramento di ruderi e tracce superstiti di viabilità cittadina ed extraurbana.

Si tratta generalmente di documentazione poco omogenea, talvolta occasionale e frutto di osservazioni del tutto personali. Di estrema rilevanza sono comunque i dati che è possibile desumere da questo tipo di ‘fonte’, spesso dovuti allo spirito di osservazione di personaggi dai vasti interessi e anche a casualità, ma sempre assai utili a comprendere il clima di indagine pionieristica della prima metà dell'Ottocento e le tappe decisive della riscoperta di Cirene.

La città, per altro, era nota alla cultura storico-archeologica dell'epoca attraverso la documentazione costituita dalle fonti letterarie classiche (una delle prime sintesi è in Thrige, 1819). Esse costituiscono un valido supporto di base che accompagna vari viaggiatori nella ricerca del sito su cui sorgeva Cirene e della sua antica conformazione. Gli appunti di viaggio in seguito vengono ulteriormente elaborati e prendono corpo in opere che hanno avuto in qualche caso ampia fortuna in Europa e che hanno costituito il primo fondamento della moderna conoscenza e del rifiorire degli studi e delle ricerche sulla ‘Atene d'Africa’.

In winter 1987–8 Mr Ramadan Kwaider of the Department of Antiquities at Cyrene found a marble block, inscribed on three faces, in die lower levels of the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in the Wadi Belgadir; it had been uncovered by a combination of burrowing foxes and winter rains, and is now, by his prompt action, safe in Cyrene Museum (inv. no. 3480). Our preliminary report on it is awaiting publication in Libya Antiqua; we offer here the three texts, with discussion of some of their points of interest.

The history of the block, which was three times re-used, is a vivid reminder of the value of marble at Cyrene, all of it imported and therefore very rarely to be discarded when out of date or damaged, if it could be made to serve another turn. Its findspot solves an uncertainty about the attribution of some other inscriptions to the Wadi Belgadir Sanctuary. More significantly still, it provides a new and suggestive document relating to Roman taxation in Cyrenaica.

Only the third and final inscription on the block (Fig. 1) can be said with certainty to belong to the sanctuary. This was cut on a face which measures w. 0.97 m × ht. 0.35 m × d. 0.23 m and was dressed with a claw chisel, but not polished. The letters (ht. average 0.04 m) were lightly cut, rather narrow for their height, in a style dateable approximately to the Hadrianic and early Antonine periods; but although the layout, with quite careful centering, is respectable, the cutting is light so that the letters would only be easily legible if over-painted. The top surface, when the block is in this position, has been hollowed out, presumably for the insertion of the base carrying the statue implied by the text.

Nel Magazzino del Museo di Cirene vi sono numerose statuette in calcare, purtroppo acefale, rappresentanti uomini e forse donne con in mano offerte o attributi vari. Dovevano, quando intere, raggiungere un'altezza di circa cm. 50/60. Molte sono senza numero d'inventario e quindi senza indicazione della provenienza. Alcune sono immortalate in vecchie lastre fotografiche del magazzino-museo di Barce e provengono da Bu Senab. Riproducono i pezzi come erano dopo il ritrovamento, in condizioni notevolmente migliori. Di questi molti sono oggi scomparsi così come tutte le teste ed alcuni frammenti. Quelle conservate sono: (le descrizioni sono state fatte durante l'esame diretto delle statue e pertanto non sempre corrispondono alle fotografie eseguite dopo il ritrovamento).

Nelle vecchie lastre di Barce vi erano altre statuette poi disperse: un togato (Fig. 14), un cavaliere a cavallo (Fig. 15), due personaggi maschili (Figg. 15 e 17) con mantello gettato dietro le spalle (uno dei quali con una pecora accanto), uno con il solito oggetto piegato ad angolo retto (Fig. 18), due con in mano un vitellino (Figg. 19 e 20), due frammenti della parte inferiore di personaggi panneggiati (Figg. 21 e 22), sette teste (Figg. 23–27) (otto con quella del n. 2), molti frammenti di basi con piedi umani (vedi Fig. 13) e zampe caprine ed altri poco leggibili.