A peculiar and very distinct group of portraits have in recent years aroused the interest of an increasing number of students of Roman art. These are the Cyrenaican funerary portraits, some 117 of which were studied and published for the first time as a separate series by E. Rosenbaum in 1960. Several of these portraits have found their way into European collections of ancient sculpture in these last two centuries. One is presently housed in the Museo Nazionale in Rome, and six are in the possession of the Museum Authorities in Malta. Six of the portraits published by Rosenbaum come from the British Museum. To these a seventh one (PLATE 00) should be added, which has remained unpublished having escaped the attention of both Rosenbaum and the compiler of the volume devoted to Cyrenaica of the Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani for Great Britain. Considering the easily noticeable character of this type of funerary sculpture it is somewhat surprising that neither of the two distinguished scholars became aware of the existence of this portrait. It has to be said, however, that no mention of it is made in either Smith and Porcher, or the catalogue of sculpture of the British Museum.

In two rooms of the courtyard house (no. H) on the Sidi Krebish site excavated by this society, the wall plaster carried a large number of graffiti. Obviously this must mean that the rooms were open to public use in some sense at the time of writing and, as will be seen, there are grounds in the texts for suggesting that the house was then used as a restaurant or more probably a hotel.

The author discusses a gold dinar, found at Cyrene, of the Caliph al-Waleed bin Abd el-Malik, and its place within the Umayyad reformed coinage.

Although some examples of hand mirrors are known from older excavations in Libya, a rock cut tomb at Sidi Hussein, Benghazi, has recently produced a piece with radiate edging, the first example of this type to be recorded for the country.

The mirror unfortunately lacks its handle. It has the usual standard form of disc, decorated on the back with two heavy series of concentric circles at edge and centre, with, between them, a single circle. The radius of the piece is about 5.6 cm measured to the tip of a perfect ray. There are fourteen surviving rays, though originally there were probably sixteen. At the back there are traces of the solder plate of the handle in the form of a fleshy stylised willow leaf.

The origin of this type of mirror can be traced back to the hand mirrors represented on South Italian painted pottery of the fourth and third centuries B.C., as shown for example on a small Apulian oinochoe in Chester (pl.B). No actual examples have yet been found, though a mirror which may well be related was found during excavations at Locri Epizephyrii and is now in the Museo Nazionale, Reggio di Calabria (inv. no.5201).

The Roman radiate mirror has a border with between ten and thirty rays, usually with a simple terminal knob giving the characteristic profile. As with all Roman hand mirrors, the handle was separately cast using a bronze with a slightly higher percentage of lead than was used in the disc, probably so as to give extra weight and balance to the piece, as well as to aid the casting process.

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

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

Until the end of the 19th century, the camel road from Kukawa near Lake Chad in Northern Nigeria to Tripoli in Libya was essentially a slave route. Only the most robust slaves survived the desert march which usually ended in the great slave market of Murzuk in central Libya. Prior to John Hare in 2001/2002, the last foreigner known to have followed the road in its entirety was the Swiss-born, British national Hanns Vischer, in 1906.

This article, which quotes from the Vischer family archive, highlights and compares the differences that have arisen in undertaking this journey with camels after a lapse of 100 years. It reveals how Vischer was attacked by Tuaregs at Tajirhi in southern Libya and his encounters with imprisoned Turkish and Bulgarian revolutionaries and miscreants in Murzuk. It also highlights the dangers to a foreigner of undertaking this journey at a time when the Ottoman empire was crumbling and the French and the British were striving to carve out their colonial territories in the vast Saharan and sub-Saharan regions of Africa.

A new Neo-Punic inscription from the region of Lepcis Magna region is discussed in detail, and its wider context outlined. Not only does this inscription attest to the prevalence of the Punic language in the suburbs of Lepcis Magna, but it also provides evidence for the diffusion of Phoenician religion in this area. The inscription also sheds more light on the history of Tripolitania and indicates, by the use of Libo-Phonecian personal names, that at least some of the inhabitants of the city of Snpba were of Libo-Phoenician origin.

The study of red slip ware (RSW) imports in the Metelis region was bolstered by the significant presence of fine wares at the site of Kom al-Ahmer. The ancient town is located 44 km southeast of Alexandria. The study of the pottery is based on over 32,000 sherds, of which 472 are fine ware and 364 are imports from the Mediterranean basin and Upper Egypt. The flow of imported fine wares reflects the political events affecting Africa Proconsularis, in particular the invasion of the Vandals. Imports from Africa represent almost a monopoly on fine pottery imports through the first half of the fifth century. After the invasion, these were significantly reduced. However, there was no decline in the number of imported vessels and, from the mid-fifth century onwards, a considerable amount of Cypriot RSW and a smaller quantity of examples from Upper Egypt could be found. Thus, the change in pottery imports involved their areas of origin. After the Byzantine Empire conquered the North African region, pottery imports from Africa resumed in many Mediterranean contexts. This does not seem to have been the case at Metelis, where Cypriot RSW remained dominant and the imports of Egyptian RSW A and Aswan fine ware increased.

A large number of mosaic floors in Cyrenaica are in poor condition and a systematic programme for the assessment of exposed mosaics followed by strategic planning for their long term preservation is long overdue and badly needed. A mosaic floor discovered at Tocra in 1972 is a prime example of a deteriorated pavement. In this case the Department of Antiquities decided to protect the mosaic by careful reburial in a methodical fashion. Preservation of the Tocra pavement by careful reburial, with due regard to context and need, is unprecedented and represents a new, extreme but essential conservation activity for Libyan archaeology.

This article investigates the visibility of public edifices at Lepcis Magna (Lebdah, Libya) and how people in antiquity approached, lived, and experienced them. It engages with the buildings’ layout, architectural and sculptural ornamentation, and epigraphic apparatuses, looking at the transformations of the cityscape from Augustus to the Antonine era. The analysis highlights the importance of private and public patronage and how social status was showcased through the monumentality and visibility of new constructions in an evolving urban environment. Buildings and their ornament drew upon a range of architectural and decorative models: influences from the centre of Empire and the Mediterranean world, long-lasting Hellenistic traditions, as well as North African and locally created, or reinterpreted, motifs that contributed to shaping the Lepcitanian architectural taste.

The arch of Gordian III at Mustis (Al Karib, Tunisia) has been the subject of scholarly work since the eighteenth century, and its dedicatory inscription has drawn the attention of antiquarians and archaeologists since the early nineteenth century. The transcription and reconstruction of its text were proposed by the editors of the eighth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum in numbers 1577 and 15572. This version has prevailed in scientific literature ever since, even though Beschaouch announced in a short note in 1969 the discovery of a fourth block that substantially alters the information it contains. However, a comprehensive study of the complete inscription was never published due to the lack of graphic material. Thanks to the drawing by J. Vérité, the architect in charge of the monument's restoration, we can analyse the inscription as a whole. We conclude that the proposal by the CIL editors is incorrect, we provide the complete transcription of the epigraph, and we propose a new date for the dedication of the arch, in 240 AD.

This article draws on the notion of collective memory to address the experience of urban space in antiquity. Focusing on Timgad in the Severan period as a case study, it mainly engages with the city plan and its streets, the public buildings that lined them, and their honorific inscriptions. Based on top-down and bottom-up processes, it highlights how the built landscape was staged to create a memory of the urban space and its development, but also how the inhabitants themselves were able to contribute to fostering this memory through everyday urban practices.

This is a short report on a selection of the small finds from the excavations of a Roman house which lies to the west of the theatre at Lepcis Magna. The pottery and coins from the current levels of excavation have been dated to the late 5th and early 6th centuries AD; however, many of the objects seem to be residual. One of the most interesting finds was a solid bronze ring, decorated with two female figures. The object seems to have been functional, with the ring and the bars on which the woman are seated being attached to a soft material such as leather. These characteristics, which can be found on parallel examples, along with other bronze artefacts from the site suggest that the former was part of the decoration of a horse drawn carriage. Several pieces of jewellery were found including two gemstones which were once part of a finger ring, dating from the 2nd century AD. The first is a garnet and shows the goddess Artemis/Diane in her role of huntress, holding a bow and arrow. The second, which is a cornelian, is decorated with a portrait of a youth and may well be a local copy of a type circulating at the time. Many pieces of locally crafted bone and ivory were also found, including a bone plaque with a floral decoration which was originally intended as a decorative inlay for a small object such as a box. A similar piece from Egypt has been dated to around the 3rd or 4th centuries AD.