Libyan archaeology Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The Aterian has a huge geographic extension covering all North Africa, although it was not supposed to exist in the mountain ranges of the central Sahara. Its chronological context is not yet definitively determined and it is still difficult to say whether the Aterian tools are technological, typological, functional, or chronological markers. Recent surveys and excavations at Uan Tabu and Uan Afuda, two rock-shelters located in the central Tadrart Acacus, provide the first chronological, environmental and archaeological indications on this Late Pleistocene human occupation in the area. The lack of organic matter led us to perform OSL and TL analyses on sand. L'Atérien a une énorme extension géographique qui couvre tout le Nord de l'Afrique, tandis qu'on ne pensait pas qu'il existait dans les montagnes du Sahara central. Son contexte culturel n'est pas définitivement déterminé et il est encore difficile de dire si les instruments atériens sont des indicateurs téchnologiques, typologiques, fonctionels ou culturels. Reconnaissances et fouilles récentes à Uan Tabu et Uan Afuda, deux abris situés dans l'Acacous central, fournissent les premières indications sur la chronologie, l'environnement et l'archéologie de l'Atérien dans la région. L'absence de la substance organique, nous a porté à faire des déterminations OSL et TL sur les sables.

- by and +1
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- Archaeology, Saharan Archaeology, Middle Stone Age (Archaeology), Prehistory

The contribution derives from a recent resumption of studies on the architecture of the Curia in the Old Forum of Lepcis Magna, excavated by G. Guidi in the Thirties and then remained largely unpublished. The building fits the category of temples inside porticoes (templa cum porticibus), with a monumental access in form of a propylon. Morphological characteristics, building materials and structural considerations refer to the first century A.D., not later than the Flavian period. This chronology, much more ancient than the fourth century suggested by R. Bartoccini, which thought that the building had been realized within an older temple, allows to give the monument a particular importance in relation to the Curia Julia in Rome, whose model could have been widespread in Roman Africa by the Lepcitan building itself. If this is true, the Curia of Leptis Magna is the most vivid memory of the lost Roman monument.

- by Monica Livadiotti and +1
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- Libyan archaeology, Roman Architecture, LEPTIS MAGNA, Roman Archaeology
- by Massimiliano Munzi
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- History, Art History, North Africa Studies, Contemporary Art

Article in Swedish giving an general overview of the history of Greek Cyrene and Cyrenaica.

A distinctive type of artificial port structure has been found in Africa Proconsularis, but not elsewhere in the Mediterranean. This structure is identified here as a 'jetty with platform', due to its main components: a straight jetty extending from the shoreline and a large platform attached to the outer end of the jetty. The article considers the chronological, environmental, and technological factors that may be responsible for the construction of this type of jetty, which is found at Acholla, Gigthis, Leptiminus, Ras Segala, and possibly Lepcis Magna. Antiquités africaines 52 (2016) 125-139.

- by Massimiliano Munzi
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- History, Economic History, Archaeology, Economics
- by Louise Belfrage
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- Museum Studies, Cultural Heritage, Syria, World Cultural Heritage

مدينة غدامس تمثل واحة ليبية عند ملتقى الحدود السياسية الليبية الغربية مع حدود تونس والجزائر، وتعتبر المدينة الوحيدة المسقوفة في صحارى العالم. وتدرس الورقة مساكن مدينة غدامس التقليدية فى ضوء دراسة نموذج.
المساكن الغدامسية فقيرة المظهر الخارجى، جدرانها مرتفعة قليلة الفتحات. تبنى الأساسات، والجدران حتى ارتفاع متر تقريباً بالحجر الرملى، وتبنى الجدران بالطوب اللبن، وتستخدم أخشاب النخيل للأسقف ودلف الأبواب والخزانات والأعمال الخشبية الأخرى.
يتكون المسكن الغدامسى من ثلاثة طوابق (طابقين والسطح). ويشتمل على وحدة الاستقبال والمعيشة، حجرات للنوم، المخازن، حجرات للتموين، الكبة، المرحاض، المطبخ، الكمار، والممرات والسلالم للحركة.
أهم خصوصيات عمارة المسكن التقليدى بغدامس اختفاء الفناء الداخلى السماوى؛ واستخدام السطح، والحركة عبر أسطح المنازل، بالإضافة إلى شكل ومضمون الزخارف.
تناقش الورقة البحثية كذلك تأثير المضمون الدينى على عمارة المسكن الغدامسى (فقه العمارة). وتعرض الورقة البحثية لمقارنة المسكن التقليدى بصفة عامة والغدامسى بصفة خاصة فى ضوء الأنماط المختلفة للعمائر السكنية في العمارة العثمانية في العالم الإسلامى وأوربا العثمانية. مع مقارنتها خاصة بالعمارة التقليدية في الواحات المشابهة لواحة غدامس حيث الظروف البيئية والمناخية والإجتماعية للوقوف على العوامل المؤثرة على التخطيط ، وأوجه الشبه والاختلاف فيما بينها.

- by Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
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- Ancient History, Archaeology, Egyptology, Egyptian Art and Archaeology

Ville libyco-punique, Saldae reçut vers 25 avant notre ère, une déduction de vétérans de la Legio Septima (de même que Rusazus et Tubusuptu dans la même région). Elle se trouvait dans un dangereux voisinage, celui de montagnards libyques, au sud-ouest les Quinquegenatenei qui occupaient le Djurdura, et au sud-est les Bavares qui ont donné leur nom aux Babors. Il en résulta de nombreuses péripéties.

- by Jean-Pierre LAPORTE
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- Roman History, Libyan archaeology, Berber studies, Libyan Studies

The presently accepted ceramic chronology places the earliest episodes of Greek colonisation in Libya some three to four decades earlier than the traditional historical dates. A similar offset between the archaeological and historical chronologies can be seen at Naukratis and other Archaic Greek sites. A review of ‘fixed points’ for Archaic dating shows that the balance of evidence now strongly favours a reduction of late seventh to early sixth century BC Greek ceramic chronology by three to four decades. Such a reduction would bring harmony between the archaeological and historical pictures for the founding of the Cyrenaican colonies, restoring confidence in the account given by Herodotus.

This paper deals with the House of Leukaktios, which has been discovered during Polish excavations at Ptolemais, Libya, in 2001 2007. The house has almost completely preserved mosaic pavements and the plan of Graeco-Roman type with an open central court (atrium), acting as the focal point around which the rooms were arranged. The name of one of the last owners, Leukaktios, is written twice on the mosaics in the atrium and in the triclinium. The author proposes the identification of several rooms. Room 1, a triclinium, has a mosaic with the characteristic U-shaped geometric frame around a central figural panel that depicts a personification of Victory or Nike. Room 14 is identified as an andron/triclinium with a similar U-shaped version lay out of the mosaic pavement. Room 9, which is situated in front of the andron/triclinium, could be interpreted as a gyneceum. The central panel which represents Dionysos and sleeping Ariadna has a parallel from the House of Dionysos in Cyrene, where the mosaic bears a rare Greek inscription dedicated to a woman.
Room 4 is identified as a reception hall. The mosaics are homogeneous in style and belong to the last phase of the building between AD 215 and 225.

This short report summarises the principal results of excavations by The Society for Libyan Studies at the site of the Greek city of Euesperides (Sidi Abeid/Es-Selmani, Benghazi) between 1999 and 2006. The excavations confirmed occupation of the site from the period c. 580–560 BC down to the mid third century BC when the site was abruptly abandoned, apparently after the city's destruction in the civil strife that engulfed Cyrenaica after the death of Magas. No more than eleven years before the abandonment, there is evidence for destruction by earthquake, followed by rebuilding. Throughout the site there is abundant debris from the production of purple dye from the Murex trunculus shellfish, and the city's ceramic assemblages show a wide range of long-distance trading contacts with both the Greek Aegean and the Punic world.

- by Andrew Wilson
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- History, Ancient History, Archaeology, Classical Archaeology

This contribution offers a new reading of the ancient landscape of the periphery of Lepcis Magna thanks mainly to the data from the survey campaigns carried out by the Archaeological Mission of Roma Tre University (2007– 13) together with new archival research and GIS analysis. The new data are related to the road network of the Lepcitanian territory and its inner suburban areas. They include both the already known routes (essentially the coastal via publica and the via in mediterraneum) and new roads here presented merging the new information with the already published archaeological evidence. Beside the road network, a new topographic reading of the southeast suburb shows also traces of an ancient land partition based on Roman measurements. This latter discovery would represent, up to now, the first evidence of a cadastrian land partition in Tripolitania.

- by axel & anne-michelle van albada
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- Libyan archaeology, Rock Art, Messak, Saharan Prehistory

North Africa is rarely mentioned in scholarship on the medieval Mediterranean. This paper demonstrates the potential of archaeology for understanding the impact of the Arab conquests on settlement and society in seventh- and eighth- century North Africa. Despite difficulties in dating early medieval occupation, synthesis of the available evidence reveals that the Arab conquest was not catastrophic for settled life. Mapping the distribution of urban sites across North Africa shows that the majority of Byzantine towns were not abandoned but remained significant centres. The rural evidence is less clear, but suggests a relatively busy countryside of estates, farms and fortified villages. The paper then presents three detailed case-studies of the towns of Tocra, Sbeïtla and Volubilis in the early medieval period, before considering more broadly the evidence for fortifications, religious buildings (churches and mosques), housing and production in towns. It concludes with some preliminary observations on the nature of Arab rule in North Africa from the perspective of the archaeological evidence.

The first part of this contribution, by the President of the Department of Antiquities of Libya (DoA), presents the important recovery of a female portrait head, found at Apollonia during excavations conducted between 1921 and 1923 by the then Superintendent of Antiquities of Cyrenaica, Ettore Ghislanzoni. The piece was conserved in the local museum and mysteriously disappeared in 1942, during the Second World War. It was then rediscovered in 1967 near Kaiserwaldsiedlung, in Austria, and held in the Universalmuseum Joanneum of Graz. Thanks to the commitment of the DoA and the Libyan authorities, the head was returned to Libya during an official ceremony on the 4 March 1921 in the Libyan Embassy in Vienna and today is once more in the Museum of Apollonia. The second part concentrates on a detailed analysis of the portrait head. The hairstyle, formal characteristics and comparable examples enable the work to be placed chronologically in the middle Antonine period (160-180 AD). Since a copy of this head, found at the same site (which the excavators interpreted as a stonecutter’s workshop) is held in the Museum of Cyrene, it is presumed that the woman depicted was a renowned member of the élite of Apollonia, if not of nearby Cyrene, honoured with two portraits in recognition of her benefactions to the community. We do not know where they would originally have been displayed although one possibility is the Agora and its related buildings, which would have stretched as far as the area where the East Church was later erected.

- by Massimiliano Munzi
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- History, Art History, Italian Studies, North Africa Studies

This thesis has been devoted to the study of Libyan necropolises of Jbel Boughanem. I have set in this work a systematic inventory of 491 monuments which constitute the 7 necropolises gathered in a form of a «funeral complex ».
Our survey consists in identifying the sites and the monuments in each site, establishing photographs for each monument and statements for some of them, saving data on the fieldwork thanks to inventory slips and to the Global Positioning System which facilitated the creation of a data. In order to exploit, save and analyze the information gathered, I have used a SIG (Arc View). The cartography of forms was essential for the interpretation and analysis of the data. The statistic perspective was also thought of in order to show the importance of the region’s structures according to the types, the state of conservation, the orientation as well as the shape of their external cover.
This works has led to demonstrate the importance of this grouping and to examine the different aspects of the para-megalithic and the megalithic architecture. Through the study of different types identified, tumulis, dolmens, bazinas, monuments with enclosures, with arms or antennas, and by determining the topographic implantation and the spatial expanse of these types, I have tempted to approach the question of the archeological potential in terms of « protohistory » and to check the data state. This led to reexamine the issue of the origins of protohistoricsepultures, to establish the link between place of burial and place of living, to determine the nature of human occupation, its specificities and to try and approach the question of chronology whether relative or absolute according to the data available. In fact, the architectural study of the monuments and the examining of the techniques of construction and their evolution led to the suggestion of a relative chronology of different shapes. The excavations and the absolute chronologies which had been made in different necropolises either in Tunisia, or Algeria, or sub Saharan and Saharan regions have supported some observations. I have envisaged also a study of the flint and given particular interest to moulded pottery which has showed the oldness of human occupation. The environment is favorable for a human settlement; nevertheless it is still difficult to distinguish chronologically the levels of prehistoric, protohistoric and historic occupation.
The megalithic sepultures have constituted a major subject of this work but the work field has revealed the existence of a range of walls of different kinds. Their identification, their study and their typological classification had been set in order to determine their roles. Through one of the types identified, I have envisaged the question of pre Roman habitation related to the builders of funeral monuments. The existence of some traces which constitute a problem concerning the boundary limits of necropolises in Jbel Boughanem, the discovery of structures built in many sites in Tunisia and Oriental Algeria may lead to open the file of the settling process of the native groups. Were they pre-urban or urban structures? The monuments of this region under study had undergone some influences and by limiting myself to the study of their architecture, I have come to determine essentially Saharan, Mediterranean, Phoenician, Punic and Hellenistic without neglecting nonetheless the regional contribution which reveals the process of local evolution of these sepultures.
Finally, I cannot pretend to bring an answer to all the thesis issues here-presented,related to the territories of Numidian monarchies. Nevertheless, I could indicate my contribution to the study of megalithic monuments. This research cannot but be envisaged within the frame of a project able to provide specialized scientific capacities with their logistic means. A team work leading a research following the method of a multidisciplinary workis crucial.

- by Ghith Emna
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- Libyan archaeology, Tumuli, Dolmens, Silex

L'histoire pré-romaine de l'Algérie a été longtemps marquée par ce que l'on pourrait appeler le «modèle Cintas», fondé sur la prise en main directe par Carthage d'une multitude d'escales nécessaires à un commerce réalisé essentiellement par cabotage. Le progrès des connaissances a infirmé une partie de ces conceptions et de leurs conséquences, et apporté des éléments nouveaux. Il conviendrait d'élaborer de nouvelles synthèses, beaucoup plus différenciées en fonction des régions et des époques, et faisant la part plus belle aux autochtones.

Relatively little attention has been paid to the archaeology of textile productionin North Africa. The purpose of this paper is to review the evidence for the production and dyeing of textiles, to assess how we may distinguish between the remains of fulling establishments and dyeworks, and between different kinds of dyeing; and to see what can be deduced about the scale and organisation of production. It must be stressed that such a picture will necessarily remain very sketchy until more sites have been excavated with a view to answering these sorts of questions. Because minor finds such as spindlewhorls, loomweights and needles from North African sites are rarely and poorly published, I shall focus on the evidence for physical plant and infrastructure, which is necessarily related primarily to the stages of fulling and dyeing. This is essentially an archaeology of soaking and trampling; both fulling and dyeing require vats and tubs. Fulling involves trampling cloth in tubs in a detergent solution to remove the lanolin from the fibres, followed by rinsing in vats, and then drying, carding, bleaching and pressing. The vats and tubs have no need to be heated. Dyeing, however, may well involve heating the solution, and may not have involved treading or trampling. Sites discussed in this paper include Timgad, Thuburbo Maius, Tiddis, Cuicul (Djemila) Hippo Regius, Meninx, and Berenice (Benghazi).

- by Andrew Wilson
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- Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Textiles, History of Textiles

This paper examines the evidence for Saharan trade in the Roman period in the light of recent fieldwork in the Libyan Sahara by the Fazzan Project and the Desert Migrations Project and by the Italian Mission in the Acacus. The results of these projects suggest that trade between the Roman world and the communities of the Sahara was substantially greater than believed a few years ago and highlight the transformative effect that contact with the ancient Mediterranean had on Saharan society, especially on the Garamantes of Fazzan. But this paper also argues that in focusing chiefly on trans-Saharan commerce, much previous research has misunderstood the nature and importance of Saharan trade in antiquity. Relatively few types of goods were traded all the way across the Sahara from south to north or vice-versa in the Roman period. Rather, we should be thinking principally in terms of a network of interdependent sub-systems, of short-, medium- and long-distance exchange; the trans-Saharan traffic was only one part of this network. Moreover, Saharan trade -- and especially the short- and medium-distance subsystems -- also provoked transformations in the frontier zones of Roman North Africa. The abundant evidence of Roman imports to Fazzan discovered by British fieldwork there also calls into question the universal assumption that trans-Saharan trade in the medieval and modern periods exceeded the scale of trans-Saharan trade in antiquity; this is based on no good evidence at all and may be entirely false. Comparison with better documented periods suggests that the Roman world was capable of absorbing a trans-Saharan slave traffic at least as large as that of the medieval period and the evidence of Roman imports points to a substantial trade, of which slaves were probably a major component, via the central routes across the Sahara. Saharan trade in antiquity was organised around a set of drivers that were very different from those of the medieval trans-Saharan trade, with a key role played by the development of a substantial agriculturally-based trading state within the Sahara itself, the Garamantes. The collapse of Saharan trade in late antiquity is related to the decline of Garamantian authority and is linked in part to the emergence of new tribal conglomerations in the frontier zones between the fourth and sixth centuries AD.

- by Andrew Wilson
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- History, Ancient History, Economic History, Archaeology

The question of trans-Saharan trade in antiquity has recently been illuminated by the results of new fieldwork, principally the Fazzan Project and Desert Migrations Project directed by David Mattingly in the Libyan Fazzan, and the excavations and survey work directed by Mario Liverani around Ghat. The results show an unexpected quantity of Roman imports to Garamantian sites in the Fazzan, and to a rather lesser extent to ancient sites around Ghat, demonstrating cultural contact between the Mediterranean coast and the Libyan Sahara from the 4th c. BC to the 6th or 7th c. AD, with a period of particularly intense contact from the late 1st century AD onwards, where the quantities of imports are sufficient to allow one to speak of something like a regular caravan trade.
So far however it has largely been the easily recognisable and datable Roman imports that have allowed us to sketch a picture of this trade. Much more enigmatic is the question of what the Garamantes exported to the Roman world from the Sahara, or through the Sahara originally from further south, in return. This chapter reviews what we currently know or might deduce about such Saharan exports, and proposes some avenues for future research. Using a combination of ancient written sources and comparative models from better documented periods, it concentrates particularly on the question of the trade in slaves, carnelian/”carbuncle” gemstones, natural resources such as natron, and foodstuffs including dates and grain. The paper will suggest some archaeological approaches to tracing Saharan exports in the Roman world, and review what ancient written sources suggest about their reception and social/economic significance in the Mediterranean world.

- by Andrew Wilson
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- Archaeology, Classics, Saharan Archaeology, Roman Economy

This paper proposes a new model for the diffusion of foggara-based irrigation across the Sahara in ancient and medieval times. Recent fieldwork by the Fazzan Project has established that the foggaras of the Wadi al-Ajal are of Garamantian origin (last centuries BC / early centuries AD), and appear to have been used perhaps until the early middle ages (ninth to eleventh centuries), but probably not beyond this. Abandonment of some of the foggaras may even have begun as early as the fourth century AD. It is argued that foggara irrigation technology was introduced from Egypt in the second half of the first millennium BC, and enabled the development of a Garamantian agricultural society in Fazzan, which controlled trans-Saharan trade. From Fazzan, foggaras spread north to the fringes of the Garamantian world, to southern Tunisia and the southern Aurès in the Roman period.
An apparent collapse in north to south trans-Saharan trade in the late Roman period (fourth/fifth centuries AD), linked to the decline of the Tripolitanian coastal cities, weakened the Garamantian state, not least by affecting supplies of slaves used in foggara construction and maintenance. Coupled with a declining water table, problems of labour and maintenance gradually led to the abandonment of most foggaras, and a shift to smaller-scale agriculture supported by wells. Meanwhile, however, development of oasis zones in the west central Sahara (especially the Touat and Gourara) facilitated the subsequent development of new north to south trade routes through what is now the Algerian Sahara. These oases are today the zones of most highly developed foggara use anywhere outside Iran; local tradition puts foggara use here as early as the eleventh century AD, and there are grounds for thinking it may go back to the seventh century if not earlier. There are strong similarities, in construction and nomenclature, between the foggaras of Fazzan and those of the west central Sahara, and it is most likely that the foggaras of the Touat and Gourara were introduced from Fazzan. From these oases the foggara subsequently spread to the Tidikelt, Tafilelt and Figuig. Fazzan played a pivotal role in the spread of foggara irrigation across the Sahara; not only did the technology spread along trans-Saharan trade routes, but it enabled the development of oases as trading centres. As such, the history of the foggara in the Sahara is inseparable from the history of trans-Saharan trade.

Certain social groups played an important role in ancient Egypt in despite of their scarce visibility in official sources and prestigious monuments. However, they were part of the ruling elite (in a broader sense), and their activities, decisions and power were crucial for the stability and operating of the kingdom. Traders, wealthy peasants, local potentates or village chiefs appear thus as informal but nevertheless indispensable agents and mediators for the king and his officials. In other cases, informal practices like patronage, influence and networks of contacts enabled authority to circulate and penetrate into diverse social milieus and spheres of activity and cemented social cohesion. Finally, mobile populations carried out specialized activities as traders, herders and gatherers and were essential in the exploitation of resources in certain zones.

- by Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
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- Ancient History, Sociology, Rural Sociology, Archaeology

Hundreds of underground irrigation canals, similar to the Persian qanats but known locally as foggaras, have been recorded in Fazzan, Libya’s southern desert province. Radiocarbon dating of the foggaras and associated sites has shown conclusively that these were in use from c.400 B.C. – A.D. 700. This corresponds to the heyday of a people known as the Garamantes, who can arguably be identified as the earliest polity in the Central Sahara.
In this paper, the authors explore the relationship between the development of the Garamantian state and the development of complex irrigation systems. We consider the role of the hyper -arid environment and its impact on the adoption of intensive oasis agriculture and the potential for declining water tables and failing foggaras to have contributed to the decline of Garamantian power and cohesion. We also consider the human dimension of technological innovation and managerial responses in creating a constantly evolving set of irrigation systems with corresponding evidence for cooperation and conflict.

- by Andrew Wilson
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- Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, Irrigation

This paper re-examines the evidence for the diffusion of foggara-based irrigation across the Sahara in ancient and medieval times. Recent fieldwork by the Fazzan project has established that the foggaras of the Wadi al-Ajal in Libya are of Garamantian origin (last centuries B.C. / early centuries A.D.), and appear to have been used perhaps until the early middle ages (ninth to eleventh centuries), but probably not beyond this. Abandonment of some of the foggaras may even have begun as early as the fourth century A.D. It is argued that foggara irrigation technology was introduced from Egypt in the second half of the first millennium B.C., and enabled the development of a Garamantian agricultural society in Fezzan, which controlled trans-Saharan trade. From the Fezzan, foggaras spread north to the fringes of the Garamantian world, to southern Tunisia and the southern Aurès in the Roman period.
An apparent collapse in North-South trans-Saharan trade in the late Roman period (fourth/fifth centuries A.D.), linked to the decline of the Tripolitanian coastal cities, weakened the Garamantian state, not least by affecting supplies of slaves used in foggara construction and maintenance. Coupled with a declining water table, problems of labour and maintenance gradually led to the abandonment of most foggaras, and a shift to smaller-scale agriculture supported by wells. Meanwhile, however, development of oasis zones in the west central Sahara (especially the Touat and Gourara) facilitated the subsequent development of new North-South trade routes through what is now the Algerian Sahara. These oases are today the zones of most highly developed foggara use anywhere outside Iran; local tradition puts foggara use here as early as the eleventh century A.D., and there are grounds for thinking it may go back to the seventh century if not earlier. There are strong similarities, in construction and nomenclature, between the foggaras of Fezzan and those of the west central Sahara, and it is most likely that the foggaras of the Touat and Gourara were introduced from the Fezzan. From these oases the foggara subsequently spread to the Tidikelt, Tafilelt and Figuig. Foggara technology spread throughout north Africa along trans-Saharan trade routes, and also enabled the development of oases as trading centres. As such, the history of the foggara in the Sahara is inseparable from the history of trans-Saharan trade.

- by Andrew Wilson
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- History, Ancient History, History of Science and Technology, Archaeology

Italian imperialism in Africa, especially in Libya, was from the start connected with the ideology of Romanità. Of course, Italy's colonial experience ended traumatically with the disaster of WWII, followed by the collective removal of all signs of fascism, including also the abandonment of the Romano-centrism of Italian archaeology. Owever, sketching a picture of what were potentially important scientific enterprises, while at the same time facing evidence for hurried, non-stratigraphic excavations subordinated to political ideologies, is a tax that contemporary Italian archaeology must now have the courage to pay. Archaeology played a fundamental role in building the ideology of the historical right of Rome to Libyan land. As a result, the political powers turned particular attention to the discipline and to classical studies, in general. Fascism enlarged greatly and rapidly the already strong recognition of the political value of Romanità and of Roman archaeology, thereby permanently binding the concept of Romanità to itself.

- by Massimiliano Munzi
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- History, Cultural History, Archaeology, Classical Archaeology

Third millennium Ḥwt jḥ(w)t is a locality that stands apart from other Lower Egyptian sites. Its unique archaeological and epigraphic record provides an invaluable view of the role played by a Delta centre within the administrative and productive organisation of the kingdom in the third millennium BC. It thus appears that Ḥwt jḥ(w)t was a kind of checkpoint regulating access to grazing land and plant resources in the underpopulated Western Delta. Furthermore, this was a region where Libyan populations historically settled and exploited its pasture land. Finally, traces of exchange networks in the hands of both mobile desert populations (Libyans in the oases and the north, Nubians in the south) and autonomous Egyptians, apparently operating outside any institutional framework, are becoming increasingly evident across Egypt. The resulting picture is that of a complex interaction of partly complementary, partly competing interests involving nomad pastoral populations, Egyptian settlers, and the Pharaonic state. Occasional conflicts should therefore be interpreted in the light of such interests, as the consequence of competing strategies seeking to control local resources, exchange networks and flows of wealth. Thus, concepts such as 'Libyan invasions', stereotyped views of Libyans as poor wandering nomads, or the alleged contrast between sedentary Egyptians and nomad Libyans as distinct, opposed ethnic and productive entities should also be revised.

Middle Egypt provides a unique insight into the organization of power, politics, economy, and culture at the turn of the third millennium BC. The apparently easy integration of this region into the reunified monarchy of king Mentuhotep II (2055 was possible because the interests and the local lineages of potentates were preserved. Trade and access and/or control of international exchange networks were important sources of wealth and power then. And Middle Egypt appears as a crossroads of diverse populations, as a hub of political and economic power, as a crucial node of exchanges through the Nile Valley, and as a power center whose rulers provided support to the monarchy in exchange of local autonomy and considerable political influence at the Court. In the new conditions of early second millennium, potentates from Middle Egypt succeeded in occupying a unique advantageous position, not matched elsewhere in Egypt, because of the concentration of wealth, trade routes, new technologies, political power, and autonomy in the territories they ruled. arbitrarily) were immediately equated with centralization, efficient administration, prosperity, and royal absolutism. On the contrary, when works of art lacked the excellence and grandeur expected from a wealthy and refined monarchy (once more defined in quite arbitrary terms), this could only mean that the authority of kings was collapsing and plunging the country into a time of decadence, decentralization, emergence of regional powers, and usurpation of royal prerogatives, usually accompanied by political fragmentation .

Histoire de la découverte (1983-2000) de centaines de sites rupestres inédits sur les parois d'une cinquantaine de vallées sillonnant le plateau de grès nubien du MESSAK au Fezzan Libyen. Le nombre d'œuvres permet de percevoir une culture Africaine originale du Néolithique au début de la domestication des grands bovidés et, ayant développé une surprenante mythologie.

The term "Libyan" encompasses, in fact, a variety of peoples and lifestyles living not only in the regions west of the Nile Valley, but also inside Egypt itself, particularly in Middle Egypt and the Western Delta. This situation is reminiscent of the use of other "ethnic" labels, such as "Nubian," heavily connoted with notions such as ethnic homogeneity, separation of populations across borders, and opposed lifestyles. In fact, economic complementarity and collaboration explain why Nubians and Libyans crossed the borders of Egypt and settled in the land of the pharaohs, to the point that their presence was especially relevant in some periods and regions during the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BCE. Pastoralism was just but one of their economic pillars, as trading activities, gathering, supply of desert goods (including resins, minerals, and vegetal oils) and hunting also played an important role, at least for some groups or specialized segments of a particular social group. While Egyptian sources emphasize conflict and marked identities, particularly when considering "rights of use" over a given area, collaboration was also crucial and beneficial for both parts. Finally, the increasing evidence about trade routes used by Libyans points to alternative networks of circulation of goods that help explain episodes of warfare between Egypt and Libyan populations for their control.

- by Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
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- History, Ancient History, Cultural History, Archaeology
- by Andrew Wilson
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- History, Ancient History, Cultural History, Archaeology

The subject of this study is the first migratory wave of Sea Peoples, dated to the age of Pharaoh Mernepath (late 13th century BC). According to the Egyptian sources, this coalition consisted of five Sea Peoples, namely the Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden and Shekelesh. They joined some Libyan tribes and attacked northern Egypt, but they were defeated in a great battle that took place in year 5 of Merneptah.
However, the archaeological findings from several sites located in Cyprus and Canaan show that the first wave of Sea Peoples had managed to settle in those Mediterranean regions. Pyla-Kokkinokremos (in Cyprus) and Tel Nami (in Canaan) are the settlements that better represent this earlier migratory wave, seeing that they had a brief occupation during a period that is clearly dated before the beginning of the reign of Ramesses III.
The Great Karnak Inscription recorded that many warriors dead in battle, who belonged to the Sea Peoples’ coalition, were circumcised; and this intriguing question is also analysed in this work.

The mosaic pavements in the House of Leukaktios in Ptolemais (Cyrenaica, Libya), newly discovered - by a Polish team from the University of Warsaw under the direction of T. Mikocki (1954-2007), have shed new light on the decoration of dining rooms in Ptolemais during the Roman period. It seems that in the principal triclinium of this house klinai were arranged in the Greek manner (according to E. Morvillez) and the second room, identified as an andron/triclinium, might have occasionally had klinai placed inside it. The authors propose to compare these
mosaics with pavement mosaics discovered in two others houses in Ptolemais: two in the Palazzo delle Colonne and three in the Roman Villa, both these structures having been excavated and published by Pesce and Kraeling in the 20th century.

- by Marek Titien Olszewski (Marek Tycjan Olszewski) and +1
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- History, Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Mythology
- by Andrew Wilson
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- History, Ancient History, Archaeology, Classical Archaeology
- by Virginie Prevost
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- Vernacular Architecture, Libyan archaeology, Libyan Studies, Ibadism

The multivarious arrangement of mosaic floor pavements in Greek and Roman houses provides us today with clues as to the presumed function of the rooms they decorated. This is something that Pierre Gros recently evoked in his L'architecture romaine, his excellent synthesis of Roman architecture published in Paris in 2001 by Picard. The architectural layout and decoration, especially the mosaic floors, of the given rooms in the House of Leukaktios in Ptolemais have lent support to this idea, contributing to an understanding of specific purpose and function, which can be deemed as very likely.

Grave Creek stone was written by a Libyan sailor and warrior in 400 BC in Finnish in Old European script. His ship was part of a fleet transporting refugees from the Po Valley of Italy to Ohio on Carthaginian Ships. His ship stayed over in Mexico for repairs, and by the time they arrived at the mouth of the Ohio, the fleet had already left for Carthage. Then a storm destroyed their ship, leaving them alone in a wilderness. He thinks of his wife far away, of nights in a cabin. Another terrible storm comes and his mates begin to fight.
The stone was found in the upper burial chamber of the largest mound of the Adena culture in Moundsville, West Virginia. He not only survived, but became a famous chief, standing 7 ft 4 inches tall. He signed his name with a sword rebus that said, "I made many great champions."

- by Stuart L Harris
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- Carthage (Archaeology), Libyan archaeology, Mauretania, West Virginia History
- by Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
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- History, Ancient History, Intellectual History, Cultural History

G. Mazzilli, L' Arco di Traiano a Leptis Magna, Monografie di Archeologia Libica XLII, Roma 2016
This monograph summarises the results of the full study of the monument, already excavated and restored by the Italian Archaeological Service in 1930-31, hitherto described in a few short notes, but unpublished in detail. The analysis includes: history of both excavation and restoration of the preserved structures, the survey and the description of the latter, and the detailed study of the architectural features (seen within the frame of the local architecture of Lepcis and its different cultural influences) in relation to the inscriptions. These data give for the first time a complete overview, allowing the suggestion of hypothesis about the reconstruction of the arch, particularly regarding the typology of the inner vault, the shape of the attic, and the presence of bronze statues and trophies above the columned foreparts. Aspects of the original construction have also been defined, as being the result of the local adaptation of established Roman patterns; new suggestions for the political propaganda regarding the monumental arch have been also discussed. The monograph ends with a survey of all the known Roman triumphal arches in Northern Africa. Abstracts both in English and Arabic languages complete the book.

- by L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER, Publisher and +1
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- Classical Archaeology, Classics, Imperial Rome, Libyan archaeology

The subject of this paper is the range of potential mechanisms for travel along the Mediterranean coast, from the western edge of the Nile Delta towards Cyrenaica. More specifically, it is concerned with the ways in which travel along this stretch of coast in the period from c. 1300-1150 BC may have been affected by the presence of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, an Egyptian fortress-town 300 km west of the Nile Delta, founded (and probably abandoned) during the reign of Ramesses II.
The problems of transit through the region are examined, especially the nature of the supply-chain for the large Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham garrison, and Egyptian evidence relating to the question of the possible mass-migration along the Marmarican coast of Libyan groups during the Ramesside Period.

- by Steven Snape
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- Archaeology, Egyptology, Egyptian Archaeology, Saharan Archaeology
- by Massimiliano Munzi
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- History, Cultural History, Archaeology, Humanities