bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Laguatan: A Libyan Tribal Confederation in the Late Roman Empire
Authors: Mattingly D. J. 
Published: February 2016

AbstractThe tribal grouping known as the Laguatan, Leuathae and Lawata in various late Roman and Arabic sources are identified as a powerful confederation of Libyan tribes. The confederation comprised two main types of tribes. On the one hand there were neo-berbers who migrated from the east to the west through the Libyan desert in late antiquity; on the other, there were the original inhabitants of the desert oases, of Cyrenaica and of Tripolitania who formed alliances with the newcomers. The growth of the confederation had a destabilising effect on the Roman frontiers and severe raids were made against the more Romanised areas, notably the territoria of the coastal cities.Through the sedentary agriculture of the allied Libyans, based on settlements such as Ghirza, and new conquest and exploitation, the Laguatan established an economic and agricultural regime largely independent of Rome. It is inappropriate, therefore, to view the Laguatan simply as camel-riding nomads as has been done in the past, nor was the diffusion of the camel a decisive factor in the timing of the onset of their raids. It is argued, on the contrary, that the camel was present at a much earlier date, that it was mainly used as a pack- and farm animal in pre-Islamic times and that the horse was the main instrument of the Laguatan in warfare and raiding. The Laguatan were the instigators of a Libyan cultural, religious and political revival and their history is of great importance to an understanding of the late Roman and Islamic eras.
Hellenistic and Roman Sites at Marsa Gezirah, near Misurata
Authors: Arthur P. 
Published: February 2016

AbstractThis paper describes material recovered over the last few years from sites at Marsa Gezirah, near Misurata, in an attempt to assess their nature. Site A, which has recently suffered severe damage, appears of particular importance as a small port on the edge of the Sebkha, with evidence of brisk commercial activity for the last two centuries BC.
Roman Faience from the Vicinity of Germa, Wadi el Agial, Fezzan
Authors: Tagart Charlotte , Daniels C. M. 
Published: February 2016

AbstractThis paper discusses Egyptian faience vessels of the Roman period from Fezzan. The nature and characteristics of Roman faience are discussed together with a petrological analysis of the material. The different vessel forms from Fezzan are recorded. Parallels in glass and pottery suggest a late first or second century AD date for most of the material.
A Geographical Investigation of the Wadi Derna Project
Authors: Kezeiri S. K. 
Published: February 2016

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to investigate the agricultural potential for a selected area in the northeast of Libya. The area is Wadi Derna which lies in the eastern slope of Jabel El Akhdar. The agricultural project is a multi-purpose scheme involving several inter-linked aims. The main ambition is to increase the total percentage of land under crops and to do this by replacing shifting cultivation by settled farming under irrigation.A modified Penman formula was used to calculate the potential evaporation and the deficit of water in the area and to suggest the need for supplementary irrigation.
Three Soldiers of the Cohors Hispanorum in Cyrenaica
Authors: Reynolds Joyce 
Published: February 2016

I give below the texts of two new military inscriptions from Cyrenaica with one published earlier and now reread. They are of some interest both for the history of the Roman army and for the history of the province.1. Limestone stele (width 0.61 m × height 1.35 m × depth 0.27 m) inscribed on one face which is very worn on the lefthand side, where it has been exposed to the weather. Found in 1970 by Mr. Abdussalem Bazama, half-buried on the east bank of the Wadi Kambish just west of the city of Ptolemais, beside the road which leads from the city through the surviving gate in the west wall. Left in situ.Letters, probably Augustan/Julio/Claudian: 1. 1, 0.07; 11.2, 3, c. 0.05; 1. 4, 0.075. A gable is outlined in relief above the text.C(aio) Sempronio C(aii) f(ilio)Longo duplicar(io)c(o)hortis Hispanor(um)vacatvac. Venusta lib(erta) vac.2. Limestone stele (width 0.45 m × height 1.07 m × depth 0.35 m) inscribed on one face. Photographed at Cyrene in 1929, but without record of the fmdspot; now in Cyrene Museum.Letters, probably Augustan/Julio/Claudian, 0.05.M(arcus) Aemiliu[s]M(arci) f(ilius) MacerTuranicu[s]ỊẠṚỊ me(n)s(or) c(o)h[o]-rtis Hispan-orum an(n)o-[r]um XXXX aer-a XIIX frạ[ter]vac. hie [posuit]1.4 the first four letters are enigmatic (for suggestions on their meaning see p. 00); 1.5 it is just possible that the figure I stands between cohortis and Hispanorum, but 1 think it unlikely.
Conference 13–15 July 1981: The Economic and Social Development of Libya in the Late Nineteenth and the Twentieth Centuries
Authors: Allan J. A. 
Published: February 2016

A three day conference jointly sponsored by the Society and the Middle East Centre of the School of Oriental and African Studies was held in London in July. The main purpose of the meeting was to review the development experience of the past century and to discuss the economic and social impact of the policies and investments of the numerous governments of Libya in the period. A secondary purpose was to bring together students of modern Libyan studies many of whom had not met each other before.Some 33 papers were prepared for the meeting including an inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Emrys Peters (University of Manchester) and a contribution by Dr Graeme Barker representing the Society, which placed current development experience in a broad historical context. The range of topics treated in the formal sessions was extremely wide and if there was one theme which emerged it was that there has been a tendency for Libyan administrations, new to their role in managing natural resources, to overestimate the country's agricultural potential. Over ninety people attended the meetings including twelve from Libya and most attended the dinner on the final evening kindly provided by the Libyan Bureau in London.Copies of the conference programme and abstracts are available from the secretary, and a limited number of the papers can be provided for members as long as stocks last. Arrangements are being made to publish most of the papers in English in London and it is hoped that papers for the third day of the conference, dealing with the period after independence, will also be published in France.
Libyan Valleys Survey
Authors: Jones Barri , Barker Graeme , Hayes Peter 
Published: February 2016

This project began in 1979. Its objectives are to locate, survey and analyse the extensive remains of ancient agricultural settlement that can be found in the wadis of the hinterlands of Tripolitania, Sirtica and Cyrenaica. Within this framework, established by the Department of Antiquities of the Libyan Arab Republic and UNESCO, is the archaeological aim of recording the evidence for periods when extensive areas of the pre-desert were, for whatever reason, cultivated in ways that are not immediately possible today, and in the longer term of assessing those areas where modern farming might be re-established. Archaeology is thus brought into direct line with the aims of the modern world. This paper presents some preliminary comments on the findings of the 1979 survey, which (as we conclude) have raised questions about ancient settlement and land use rather than provided answers; we hope that our full report on the project in Libya Antiqua will be able to offer a reasoned assessment of these issues, understanding which is surely critical for modern agricultural planning.The first season of fieldwork by the UNESCO-sponsored Anglo-Libyan team under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities, Tripoli, occupied the period from late August to early October. The succeeding months have been taken up with the assimilation, processing and plotting of the initial results. The group was led on the British side by Dr Graeme Barker, of the University of Sheffield, and Professor G. D. B. Jones, of the University of Manchester. Their grateful thanks are due to Dr Salaheddin, at the time President of the Department of Antiquities, and his successor Dr Abdullah Shaiboub, who was at the time in Britain and took an active part in the preparations for the 1979 programme. Mr Abdul Wahab, Controller of Antiquities for Tripolitania took part in the original preliminary survey conducted by Mr Charles Daniels, Chairman of the Society for Libyan Studies, and Professor Jones late in May 1979. Mr Omar Marjub, Controller of Antiquities for Leptis Magna, kindly provided the base for the team at Homs and helped in a variety of ways, both at Leptis and during his visit with Dr Salaheddin in the field. The day-to-day work in the field was organised by Mr Abdullah Ahmed and Mr Muhammed Shitewi, Assistant Controller of Leptis Magna, to whom the Directors are deeply grateful. In Tripoli, the British Ambassador and his wife, Mr and Mrs A. Williams actively fostered the work on the project, not least through their hospitality to members of the team. A particular debt of thanks is due to Olwen Brogan for her constant advice, encouragement and active presence in the field, as well as to Miss Tina Watson.
Excavations in the North-East Quadrant. 1st Interim Report
Authors: Little J. H. 
Published: February 2016

The background to the Society's involvement with the part of the site of Ptolemais known as the North-East Quadrant has been outlined in a previous report in this Journal. (Annual Report of the Society for Libyan Studies 1977–78)Following a short two week season in 1978, under the overall direction of J. B. Ward-Perkins, to assess the problems of the site, the Society sent out an expanded team over a period of six weeks in May and June 1979 to commence, inter alia, a programme of excavation in the North-East Quadrant. It did not prove possible to complete the programme in 1979 and it was expected that a further, and probably final, season's work would take place in August and September 1980. In the event, however, this has not proved possible, but it is hoped that the work on site can be concluded in 1981. Meanwhile this short interim report on the results of the 1979 excavations is presented to the Society.While the main excavation effort was concentrated in the North-East Quadrant a number of sondages were made in the House of the Triapsidal Hall in an attempt to establish the date of the original building as well as that of the East Avenue (and thus that of the city's Hellenistic street grid) onto which it fronts. A trench 1.5m. wide and 4.0m. long was put down through the central room of the western range between the peristyle and the street wall. This revealed two surviving floor levels of which the upper retained traces of mosaic while the lower, which proved to be the original floor level, was of smooth plaster. The footings of the house's west wall were also revealed, set into the natural sub-soil. These levels produced a quantity of fine ware sherds which, when studied, should yield a date for the construction of the original building, as well as, by implication, the laying down of the Hellenistic street grid.
The Excavation at Tocra 1974: additional observations in the light of the Berenice excavations
Authors: Riley John 
Published: February 2016

It is the purpose of this article to provide a convenient summary of the full report of the Tocra kiln site excavation (appearing in Libya Antiqua: Riley, in press 2) to incorporate fresh information which has now become available as a result of the Berenice excavations (Lloyd 1977), and to present, in summary, a revised format for the quantified figures.A considerable quantity of coarse pottery (over 12,000 sherds, weighing nearly 700 kg) was excavated in the course of the limited two week excavation. The range of forms was very similar to that occurring in stratified deposits at Berenice dating from the late second to the mid third centuries A.D. As a detailed publication of this Berenice material is soon to appear (Riley, in press 1), the pottery from Tocra is here reproduced according to the Berenice typology, in order to facilitate the standardisation of coarse pottery classification between the two sites, and within Cyrenaica in general.The pottery from the various tip levels is consistent and, as fine wares datable to the first half of the third century A.D. were present in both the lowest and uppermost tip levels, the whole excavation appears to represent one period (see Riley 1976). For this reason, while the quantified results of the individual layers are presented in full in the final report, an amalgamation of these results for the whole excavation is here presented in the format subsequently devised for Berenice and Carthage (see Humphrey 1976, 125–156).
Industrial Exploitation of Murex Shells: Purple-dye and Lime Production at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi (Berenice)
Authors: Reese David S. 
Published: February 2016

Since time immemorial attractive colours have held man's attention. Occasionally he has assigned to them symbolic significance, often as religious or status insignia. The various shades of reds and purples have been especially chosen; some see in them the colour of blood, the sun or fire. The presence of ochre and haematite in Palaeolithic burials may be the first instance of the high regard for these colours.Probably the most famous red–purple colour associated with religion, status and general elitism is the shell-based purple-dye of the ancient Mediterranean, known variously as Royal purple, Tyrian purple or Imperial purple. The recent discovery of crushed purple-dye producing shells at Berenice provided a welcome addition to this field, a study which Alexander Dedekind, in the 1890s, termed “Pourprologie”.Before examining the Berenice shells and their context a brief survey will be made of the world-wide usage of shell purple-dye, its Mediterranean origin and distribution, the basic method of production and the contemporary Mediterranean history of the Berenice finds.Purple-dye is obtained from the hypobranchial gland found in the mantle cavity of living Murex and Thais (or related Purpura and Nucella) marine snails. The purpose of this gland is unclear, though it may be the reason such shells are avoided as food by marine life (and are thus not a useful fish bait). The dye might also be ejected by the mollusc as a defence mechanism, much like the black ink of the octopus or squid.
Wadi Bel Gadir Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, Cyrene
Authors: White Donald 
Published: February 2016

Systematic excavation in the grounds of Cyrene's extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone has taken place on a syncopated annual basis since 1969 (non-seasons in '70, '72, and '75), and while this activity has not been conducted under the auspices of the Society for Libyan Studies, the original idea to clear the site owes much of its inspiration to the encouragement of Richard Goodchild, who had generously agreed to share in its responsibility before his death in 1968 brought about the postponement of its pilot season scheduled for later in that same year. Moreover, the University Museum Expedition was fortunate to obtain a research grant from the Society in 1976 for one of its staff. For these reasons I am happy to contribute the following what otherwise might appear exogenous remarks.While the site athwart the south slope of Wadi Bel Gadir (pl. 1, fig. 1) appears to have been scarcely noticed by the early travelers, R. Norton (1910–11) followed by E. Ghislanzoni (1915) are known to have retrieved a number of sculptures and terracottas from its soil. In fact, some of the more burdensome of the marbles first discovered and then abandoned by the former were subsequently recovered by the latter, only to turn up in the same locus more than half a century later, re-buried in shallow fill containing broken wine (?) bottles and spent cartridges. Some time between 1915 and 1929 the Italian authorities were motivated to lay railway track along the wadi drain and to carry out an extensive clearance of the sanctuary's lower two terraces, leaving a gaping hole in its NW corner still visible today. Nothing is known of what prompted this considerable effort, which was never published, but already by the time of Anti's article the area is referred to as a Demeter sanctuary mainly on the basis of random discoveries of fragmentary inscriptions eventually published by Oliverio. By 1969 the site exhibited only the bare outlines of its main wall features and betrayed few outward signs of previous digging.
Lunch at Cyrene in A.D.106 and the closing incidents of Trajan's Second Dacian War
Authors: Reynolds J. M. 
Published: February 2016

Among the inscribed stones brought from Cyrene to London by R. M. Smith and E. A. Porcher, and now in the British Museum, is a group of four marble fragments which deserve renewed consideration. They were found in ruins to the north of the Temple of Apollo, which must either be the Temple of Artemis or a structure closely associated with it. They concern the activity of a priestess of Artemis during the reign of Trajan. As A. Wilhelm was the first to notice, the future tense of the verb ἀριστιϵῖ in A, l. 21 shows the text to be an invitation to ἂριστον (= approximately lunch), issued by the priestess to the maidens of the city and its territory. In view of its subsequent inscription the occasion must have been one of unusual importance; certainly no similar text has been found in Cyrene.The last full edition was by F. H. Marshall in 1916; a re-examination of the stone suggests some new readings and restorations:
A Statuette of Marsyas at Cyrene
Authors: Wanis Saleh 
Published: February 2016

The torture of Marsyas was represented in many sculptures and paintings of the classical period, and indeed one such statuette is at present located in the Cyrene Museum (Inv. No.C14255; Archive No.30). This unpublished statuette, which is made of Pentelic marble and has a total height of 0.82 m (including base), was found near the Forum of Proculus (Caesareum) at Cyrene.Pindar relates how Marsyas found the cursed flute which the vain Athena had discarded and how he later challenged Apollo (playing the lyre) to a musical contest. Apollo agreed on condition that the winner might do as he chose to the loser. Marsyas lost the contest and as a result was tied to a pine tree and flayed alive. The basis of this legend is undoubtedly the contrast between the music of the lyre employed in the worship of the Ionian Apollo and that of the flute used in the religion of Southern Phyrgia.This statuette at Cyrene portrays the sufferings of Marsyas. It is a splendid composition, full of action and yet beautifully harmonious. The hair and the beard are carefully and naturally rendered; the expression of the face is powerful, and Marsyas' despair has been shown most effectively by the distorted features of the face, as indicated by the long upward curve of the eyebrows. The grooves on the forehead and the oblique setting of the eyes enhance the effect. Marsyas has been given a shaggy horse tail and probably also horse ears, and the veins of his body stand out as if they are going to burst, while the muscles are stretched to breaking point. The head has thick hair, which is slightly tangled and seems to be drenched in sweat.
Septimius Severus at Lepcis Magna and Cyrene
Authors: Strong D. E. 
Published: February 2016

Lepcis and Cyrene in Roman times were two very different cities, each typical of the province to which it belonged—Lepcis to Africa Proconsularis, one of the most successfully ‘Romanized’ provinces of the Roman Empire, and Cyrene to the province of Crete and Cyrene which always remained part of the Greek-speaking world and retained much of its Greek character and institutions. Architecturally, Lepcis today is one of the most impressively Roman cities, with its splendid public buildings, which include the grand Severan Forum and Basilica and the massive Hadrianic Thermae, and its spacious streets. Cyrene, in contrast, preserves an image that is severely Greek, dominated by austere Doric architecture. Even in quite late Roman times there seems to have been a determined effort to preserve the old forms, so that the Capitolium, for example, on the edge of the old Agora, was re-built under Antoninus Pius as a Greek building.On the occasion of the Libya exhibition, I have tried to find a theme to bring together these two very diverse provinces that both form part of the modern Libyan Arab Republic. The choice of Septimius Severus, emperor from A.D. 193–211, needs some explanation. He was, of course, born at Lepcis probably in 146; he was there again as legatus of his uncle, the Proconsul of Africa; he may have gone there as Emperor in A.D. 203 during a grand tour of Africa and personally planned the great building programme which transformed his home-city. There is, on the other hand, no record of his ever having been at Cyrene, though he might have gone there as a boy. It is generally believed, indeed, that his first experience of the Greek-speaking empire was when he went to Syria to serve under Pertinax in A.D. 180. He does, however, provide a suitable link in that he was commemorated by sculptured monuments in both places, and the attitudes of mind which these monuments reflect, help us, I think to understand the underlying unity as well as the diversity of the two provinces.
The Garamantes of Fezzan - an Interim Report of Research, 1965-1973
Authors: Daniels C. M. 
Published: February 2016

The Garamantes were the inhabitants of Southern Libya. Their capital Garama (‘clarissimum … caput Garamantum’) lies partly under the now deserted mud-brick Arab town of Germa in the Wadi el Agial some hundred miles west of Sebha. The oldest pottery so far recovered from the site dates to the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C., but earlier occupation, stretching back to the ninth century B.C., has been found on the nearby fortified spur-site of Zinchecra. The surrounding escarpment slopes, which form the southern side of the wadi, are dotted with literally thousands of graves, which vary from simple crouch-burials in shallow cists, sometimes covered by a stone cairn, to elaborate stepped ‘chouchet’-type monuments of stone or mud brick, square or circular in shape, mud-brick pyramids 10–15 feet high and even ashlar-built mausolea of which the so-called ‘Germa mausoleum’ is the most complete surviving example. The sedentary agricultural practice of the people is attested by the many hundreds of foggaras (underground water channels with down-shafts, akin to the Qanats of Persia) which tap the aqueous strata against the escarpment side and carry their water into the wadi centre. The foggaras and burials, taken together, show that approximately eighty miles in length of the Wadi el Agial were intensely cultivated and inhabited, and recent work has shown that sites similar to Zinchecra and Garama existed at various points along this eighty-mile length, the Garamanticae Fauces, or Valley of the Garamantes.Work in the Wadi Bergiug, Murzuch-Zuila area of oases to the south has shown that similar remains exist there, while it can reasonably be argued that the third great band of oases, the Wadi Chatti on the north of the el Agial, almost certainly contained similar occupation.