The excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi, within the Hellenistic and Roman city of Berenice, yielded a considerable variety of inscriptions on portable objects in addition to monumental epigraphy. An account of the latter was published in the first volume of the final reports in 1977, together with a very short and preliminary list of the former. Following the detailed studies of various classes of material, it seemed opportune to bring together an updated account of the inscriptions on ‘minor objects’, which range from missiles to transport amphorae, table wares, kitchen wares, and lamps.

Libya in the last nine centuries has been dramatically transformed from a multi-religious, predominantly Berber speaking State into an almost Arabised, Muslim nation. This transformation is considered in relation to the emergence of the Ribāṭ and the Murābiṭīn, including the Ashrāf. This article explores the linguistic and historical roots of the Ribāṭ, Murābiṭīn and Ashrāf. It also examines the spread of Ṣufism in Libya, and die influence both the Ṣūfi orders and the Murābiṭin and Ashrāf have had on Libyan politics and society.

Water shortages have led the Libyan authorities to investigate and then develop fossil water resources in the remote south of the country. Initially the development was in situ, but in 1979 it was decided to embark on an ambitious water carrier to bring water from the south-east and the south-west of the country to the settled areas of the northern coast. It is concluded in the paper that Libya will have developed sufficient water by the end of the century to secure its urban and industrial needs. It will also have the option to allocate a similar, or an even greater, quantity to agriculture than at present achieved, but it is argued that such agricultural allocations will not be economically viable.

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.

Libya is by most definitions an oil-based economy. Yet academic study of the national oil industry is at best fragmentary. The reasons for the poor showing of the Libyan oil industry in the literature stem partly from the relative decline in its international importance since the mid-1970s and partly from the ambiguity over acknowledgement of the role of the oil industry within Libya.

The growth of the Libyan oil industry dates from 1951 and the coming of national independence. There had been surveys of a small scale and technologically limited kind in Libya in the Italian period. Some shows of oil had been discovered in Tripolitania as early as 1914 when water wells were drilled to supply Tripoli city (Waddams 1980, 27). Other oil was discovered in Tripolitania in the 1930s and a full scale exploration programme was prepared in the years 1937–1940 by the Italian national oil corporation under the geological guidance of Professor Ardito Desio, but never fully implemented due to the onset of war. Indeed, Desio was to return as a consultant to the oil companies working in Libya in the 1950s.

In 1953 a mineral law was issued which paved the way for the grant of concessions to foreign oil companies to explore and develop oil resources. A petroleum law was promulgated in 1955 which offered rather more favourable terms on fees, rents, royalties and expensing to the oil companies than were available in other longer established oil producing states of North Africa and the Middle East (cf. Waddams, 1980, 57–70). At the same time, the assets of the oil companies in Libya were given far reaching protection under amendments of the petroleum law. The consequence of the generous operating terms of this and subsequent revisions of the law (1961 and 1965) was a rapid growth in the number of concessionaries exploring for oil within the country. The open-door policy pursued by the government was much criticised at a later period. Undoubtedly, however, it did succeed in attracting a wide spectrum of oil companies into Libya, including the major ones, such as Esso, Royal Dutch/Shell, Texaco, Gulf, BP and Mobil, together with many small independent interests. The best international techniques for exploration and development were put to work in Libya within a very short space of time, bringing the country rapidly into the ranks of the main oil-exporting states. Oil exports began on a commercial scale in September 1961 from Esso's Zelten fields in the Sirtican area, concession No. 6.

The purpose of this paper is to record the involvement of primary-age children from a Libyan-administered school in Marsa-el-Brega in basic archaeological practice, both in the classroom and in the field. The site of Boreum (as identified by Goodchild in 1951), which is in an area adjacent to the school, was used for fieldwork. As well as describing the methodology that was applied, the outcome of the work at Boreum is recorded, in the hope that it will be shown that not only is such practice viable, but also that the results can make a small but useful contribution to our knowledge of such sites.

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 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.

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.

The Roman town of Mustis (municipium Iulium Aurelium Mustitanum) is near present-day Mest Henshir (Tunisia). Its epigraphic corpus has around 200 inscriptions mainly published at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when the French archaeological campaigns took place. However, a group of Latin inscriptions discovered during the 1960s remained unpublished. In the reorganisation of the archives of the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (Paris) the original photographs, negatives, slides and documents revealed new data. In this article I present five new inscriptions (three votive texts, a quadruple funerary epitaph and a new boundary stone) and new data and photographs of three already known inscriptions published by G. Wilmanns in the CIL. All these texts reveal new data about the territory of the res publica Mustitana, the sacred life of the city (including the confirmation of a Capitol) and new onomastic information about its inhabitants.

This article reports on the results of the 2008 and 2009 field seasons to survey and record rock engravings in the Wadi al-Hayat. The project started in 2004 with the intention of systematically surveying a 160 km long section of the wadi, centred on the Garamantian settlement at Jarma. This was completed in 2009 in collaboration with the Desert Migrations project. Over 600 previously unrecorded engraved panels were identified in 2008–9. These appear to range in date from the early Pastoral period to the post-Garamantian period. Clear links have been noted in previous seasons in the distribution of the engravings with respect to specific topographic and cultural features. The 2008–9 survey showed that rock carvings also mark patterns of movement through the wadi, and that these patterns appear to shift over time between the Pastoral and post-Garmantian periods. Some of the areas investigated provide relatively easy access into the Wadi al-Hayat from the south and may have represented important corridors for the migration of people and animals for thousands of years.

In tandem with the systematic survey, a targeted survey of selected Late Pastoral and Garamantian cemetery and settlement sites was undertaken during the 2008 season. No positive relationship was found between rock engravings and Garamantian burial or settlement sites. However, a definite association was demonstrated between rock art and Late Pastoral burials and temporary camp sites.

‘Notes from Libya’ is a new regular feature of Libyan Studies and follows the reports of the Society's Head of Mission, as well as updates on the business environment from Pauline Graham. These reports were previously concerned with the organisation of fieldwork and administrative matters connected to obtaining permissions, visas, and so on, and were recorded in the minutes of the Council meetings. However, they have recently taken on a new form, outlining the alarming developments in Libya, largely focusing on its heritage but also on the political and economic situations which impact on the management of Libya's ancient monuments and artefacts. The importance and historical interest of these reports now, however, merit a wider audience and a more formal record, so these accounts will now be published in Libyan Studies.

The large scale housing programme of the Libyan Government is changing the appearance of many of the towns of Libya. As part of this programme, the National Housing Corporation have recently adopted new standards for housing design, in order to ensure that the houses are better suited to the needs of the population in different parts of the country. During the investigations to develop new standards, the traditional housing in a number of regions of the country was studied, with a special emphasis on the way it relates to the climate and the way of life of the inhabitants. One of the most interesting traditional house forms was found in the oasis of Ghadames. My interest in the houses of Ghadames is not only in their history, their location in Libya or the climatic extremes to which they are subjected, but in the unusual form developed to provide protection from the climate, and the way that this form relates to the social patterns.

Ghadames lies on the western border of Libya, close to the junction with the borders of Algeria and Tunisia. It is located about 400 km from the coast, and about 450 km from Tripoli. The journey from Tripoli can be made in a few hours by the regular internal flight or in a day by car or bus. After leaving the green coastal strip the road crosses the Jafara plain and climbs the escarpment at Nalut. From Nalut the road runs south across the steppe and desert, past the oases of Sinawn and Derj to Ghadames.

Benghazi has been photographed many times from the air, but few are aware that the layout of the city was-recorded in air photographs taken very early in the twentieth century. (International Archiv für Photogrametrie 1914). These photographs provide an unusually detailed impression of the streets, public buildings and dwellings of the city, and also allow students of the Middle Eastern and North African city to observe the evolution of the city by studying later comparative photography. Libya is especially rich in such imagery at least for the recent past (Allan 1969). The purpose of this brief study is to draw attention to the rich source of evidence available in air photo records through an interpretation of an early twentieth century image along with just one of the more recent photographs taken in this area in 1965.

The determination of the date of the old photo-mosaic is the first task of interpretation. The journal in which it was published appeared in 1914, which places the image earlier than the outbreak of World War I and possibly prior to the occupation of northern Libya by Italian forces in 1911. The photo shows no evidence of the buildings which were constructed by the Italian colonists. Nor has there been any significant transformation at the harbour. In the eastern extremity of the early twentieth century city there is an assemblage of military equipment, accommodation and transport. Whether this is evidence of Turkish or Italian occupation is difficult to determine, and so we must be satisfied at this stage to date the photographs between 1911 and 1913.

It is appropriate that the Society for Libyan Studies should recall the visit of James Bruce of Kinnaird to Libya in 1766. He was the first European to visit the country who possessed both the knowledge and the equipment to undertaken an exploratory expedition with any serious claim to scientific method. But it might seem to a reader of one of Bruce's biographies that the event was of such slight and transitory interest hardly to deserve recognition. Bruce himself allowed it to be overshadowed by his subsequent experiences in Abyssinia which culminated with his visit to the source of the Blue Nile, the final goal of his great journey. A recent bibliography of Libya and a recent standard work on the country omit all reference to his name. Surely this is unjustified. Many years were to pass before other Europeans were to undertaken comparable journeys in Libya.

This paper is a preliminary report on the eighth and final fieldwork (Spring 2006) season of the excavations at Euesperides (Benghazi). Work continued in Areas P and Q on the Sidi Abeid mound, in Area R in the lower city and on the processing of finds from the 2006 and previous seasons.

In Area P excavations continued below the primary floors of the antepenultimate phase in Room 5a where a series of inter-cutting pits beneath the primary floor provided a section through the stratigraphy to natural. The results of the work showed that occupation in the sixth to fourth centuries BC was less intensive and accumulated at a slower rate than in the Hellenistic period. Three phases of early activity were represented, with the earliest levels dated to the period c. 580–560 BC. A comparable picture emerged in Area R, but in Area Q a second-phase set of buildings laid out in or after the late sixth century BC, with houses flanking the street, persisted until late in the life of the city. Excavations in Area Q Extension revealed a large circular building with an internal floor of terracotta sherds set in cement, tentatively interpreted as part of a set of public baths. A late reuse of the building was indicated by a number of plaster-lined tanks formed over the terracotta floor. The presence of the building was taken to indicate that the building and an associated street, aligned over an in-filled quarry, may have been inter-mural, suggesting that the late city was of greater size than hitherto thought.

Selected finewares, coarsewares and amphorae from the excavations are presented, together with preliminary observations, resulting from the environmental sampling of occupation deposits.

This paper presents in summary form the results of three years of remote sensing and ground-truthing of archaeological sites falling within concession areas held by Shell Libya in the Sirte Basin. This area spans the frontier of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, ranging from Wadi ben Jawwad in the west to Ajdabiyah in the east and south to Jebel Zelten. The work was commissioned by Shell to inform them of archaeological sensitivities during their ongoing operations in the region. The results presented here include the identification of thousands of previously unknown sites of all periods, dating from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Second World War. Prehistoric discoveries include significant numbers of Middle Palaeolithic sites, particularly at Jebel Zelten, and large numbers of Pastoralist Neolithic sites in the coastal hinterland and on palaeoshorelines around sabkhas further north. Traces of Libyan tribes of the first millennium BC have been found in the form of large numbers of pastoralist desert campsites. Extensive evidence for Roman and late antique settlement has been found in the coastal hinterland on both sides of the Gulf of Sirte, as well as evidence for indigenous ‘long hut’ settlements along the desert fringe.