This chapter describes cultural differences and Roman administrative boundaries that distinguished the Jewish communities of Egypt from those in Cyrenaica. Recent works on Diaspora Judaism have said little about western North Africa. The physical remains for the period 66-235 CE are meager compared to the richness of evidence from Egypt and Cyrenaica. The earliest extant synagogue, at Hammam-Lif, dates from the late fourth or early fifth century. Evidence for Jewish communities in Asia Minor begins in the third century BCE and continues through the sixth century CE and beyond. Sources preserved by Josephus attest to the role of individual Babylonian Jews in local politics before 70. For the years 70-235, the issue of Jewish self-government in Babylonia is reduced to the question of whether one can find evidence of the exilarchate in this era. Relatively ample evidence is available on the Babylonian Exilarch from the amoraic through Islamic eras.

The account of geographical and social conditions in Cyrenaica, its Augustan organization and Julio-Claudian development given in CAH X2 619-40 is taken for granted. As early as the second century BC so it is currently proposed, a series of sculptured reliefs found a little outside the walls of Cyrene presented Libyan religious ideas in a form strongly hellenized, but in many features patently non-Greek; and examples of the series were being produced also in the Roman period. By the time of Marcus Aurelius, Cyrene too seems restored to vigour. The new Roman influences were balanced by a new strengthening of the Greek tradition. Cyrenaica, in fact, by the end of the second century was showing a vitality which can fairly be reckoned as consonant with her natural resources, and a culture which is a striking combination of Greek, Roman and Libyan elements.

This chapter discusses the cultural features during the Late Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic of northern Africa. Chronologically, the cultural manifestations included under the terms Late Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic correspond to what are usually called Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in Europe. The most important Palaeolithic discoveries from Libya have been made in the north-eastern province of Cyrenaica, but a few finds have also been made further west along the coast in Sirtica and Tripolitania. In late Pleistocene times, the Nile was the central fact of human occupation in Egypt and the northern Sudan. The Jeziret el-Maghrib or 'Island of the West' extends for about 3000 km from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Gabes, and includes the northern parts of the states of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The climate in the Maghrib was cool and relatively dry during the late Pleistocene and there are no indications of true pluvial conditions during the time of the Last or Wiirm Glaciation of Europe.