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Sidi Khrebish Excavations, Benghazi, 1974 and 1975

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

Extract

Two six week programmes of excavation took place in July and August 1974 and 1975 at Sidi Khrebish on the site of part of the Hellenistic and Roman city of Berenice. Large scale excavation ceased in September 1973 and the work of the last two years was directed towards the completion of areas unfinished in 1973 together with a certain amount of new excavation.

The major discovery of the last two seasons has been a section of a two-period circuit of defensive walls, including a tower (Figs 1 and 2). The walls are Hellenistic in construction and from the associated dating material appear to post-date Queen Berenice's initial fortification of the city which was founded in the middle of the third century B.C. They are possibly as late as the first century B.C.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1974

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References

1. For reports on the two years of full-time excavation see Tatton-Brown, T. W. T. — Sidi Khrebish Excavations 1971/1972 Lloyd J. A. — Sidi Khrebish Excavations 1972/3 Society for Libyan Studies — Third Annual Report — Fourth Annual ReportCrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. The writer Solinus states that not only did Berenice lend her name to the city but also fortified it. Cited in Goodchild, R.G.: ‘Benghazi, the story of a city’. Department of Antiquities, Shahat (Cyrene), Libya. 1962Google Scholar
3. See Goodchild, R. G.Cyrene and ApolloniaAn Historical Guide (3rd ed.) Department of Antiquities, Libyan Arab Republic 1970. p.113 (plan)Google Scholar
4. The consolidated sand dunes which fringe the coastline of Cyrenaica were extensively quarried for building stone in antiquity. See McBurney, C. B. M. and Hey, J.The Prehistory and Pleistocene Geology of Cyrenaica, LibyaCambridge 1957Google Scholar
5. To be published shortly by Joyce Reynolds.Google Scholar