This article analyses the occurrence of apparently Roman names at Lepcis Magna and seeks to identify the processes of cultural assimilation taking place between the Libyphoenician population and Rome. Three main categories of change in naming practice (proposed by Herzog in the 1890s) may be recognised and suggest a number of possible explanations, other than Italian settlers, for the appearance of particular names at Lepcis. First, Roman names may have been adopted from the ruling emperor, or a senatorial patron or other suitably eminent Italian family, most commonly on the acquisition of Roman citizenship. This practice will often totally have eradicated the individual's original Libyphoenician nomenclature. The Lepcitani notably favoured aristocratic cognomina. Second, Punic or Libyan names at Lepcis may have been replaced by similar sounding Latin ones, e.g. the adaptation of Himilis to Aemilius and Amilcar to Amicus. Third, the Latin name may sometimes be a literal translation of the Punic or Libyan one. While noting a number of interesting examples of the latter two cases, the analysis here concentrates on the first category. It is concluded that there is little clearcut evidence for Italian settler families at Lepcis. Most of the names can be explained in terms of the assimilation of the indigenous population into the Roman pattern of personal nomenclature and illustrates the interesting choices available to them. The evidence at a number of points adds further weight to the strong probability that the paternal ancestry of the Emperor Septimius Severus was African.

This paper is a sequel to an earlier study of the archaeological evidence for olive oil production in Roman Tripolitania, and combines archaeological information on olive presses with the evidence for trade in Tripolitanian oil, as manifested by the identification of Tripolitanian containers (amphorae). Attention is drawn, in particular, to the apparent correspondence between conclusions made in respect of the settlement data and of the socio-economic significance of stamps on Tripolitanian amphorae. Both sets of data support the view that the urban elite of the region, and in particular that of Lepcis Magna, had control of a very considerable quantity of surplus oil production and that this constituted a major source of individual prosperity, in part manifested by the extravagant donations of public buildings. The notable wealth of the Lepcitanian aristocracy enabled increasing numbers from amongst it to participate at a high level in the central government of the Roman Empire as senators or equestrians. The culmination of this process was the elevation of Septimius Severus as the first African Emperor in AD 193. His reign brought clear short term advantages to his home town, but after his death and the assassination of both his sons by AD 217, the fortunes of the town changed for the worst. Under Severus the town had offered the Roman State a voluntary ‘tax’ in olive oil and this together with the absorption of much land into Imperial estates must have taken a significant amount of agricultural surplus out of local control. In an Appendix, some comments are made on the problems of attempting to quantify the scale of oil production, and some broad estimates are suggested.

This brief article outlines the history of John Ward-Perkins' involvement with the archaeology of the complex of buildings erected under the Severan dynasty at Lepcis Magna. The detailed survey of those superb monuments by British and Italian scholars has until now not received the level of publication which it merits. As that work finally goes to press, some explanation is given of the problems faced in preparing for publication the archive of drawings.

This paper is the sequel to an earlier article published in this journal and gives revised interpretations of the results of stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of samples of marble from Lepcis Magna in the light of subsequent refinements to the isotopic data base. Ten results have been changed, and 16 results, unassigned in 1984, may now be identified.

This article considers some of the ceramic evidence from Sabratha (the excavations of 1948-1951) and from the pre-desert to the south-east of the Gebel Gharian (the area of the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey). The association of fineware with different classes of site in the Valleys area is used to construct a chronological framework for settlement within the area. Some of the commoner coarseware types from Sabratha are illustrated and discussed.

This note is a sequel to an earlier article concerning a tomb discovered at Benghazi in 1860 by F. H. Crowe. Further papers relating to the discovery (including a plan of the tomb) have come to light and are published here. Additional comments can also now be advanced on some of the artifacts found in the tomb.

A geological reconnaissance of the Beni Ulid — Wadi Merdum region of the pre-desert of Tripolitania shows that at least twenty, stratigraphically distinct geomorphic events can be recognised from field exposures, field mapping and the analysis of Spacelab metric camera photography. The earliest events are provisionally attributed to the early Cenozoic and include uplift, tilting, faulting, the formation of karstic and karst-tectonic landforms, and erosion by meandering river systems. Some of these valleys were infilled with lava flows from the south-south-west in the ?late Palaeocene/early Eocene. Re-excavation of the ancient landscape by rivers followed. Pleistocene deposits of powerful, often braided rivers occur in the wadi floor. The wadi sides are clothed in complex sequences of alluvial fans, screes, windblown, waterlain and anthropogenic deposits, sometimes with weathering horizons and calcretes of uncertain stratigraphic significance. The plateaux contain large alluvial basins, palaeosols, soils and weathering horizons of uncertain age. Accelerated soil erosion caused by human activity appears to have been important in the area — slope deposits of scree and midden between 4 and 8 metres in thickness have accumulated beneath one gasr during a 500 year period. The most recent deposits identified are complex aeolian deposits at the wadi edge and the interdigitating series of floodloams and aeolian sands on the wadi floors.

The Qasr Al Haj Formation, comprised of alluvial fan gravels and sands with calcrete horizons, is subdivided into five members separated one from the other by surfaces of discontinuity. These surfaces, defined primarily by erosion and soil formation, can be followed northwards into the Jifarah Formation thus allowing detailed correlation of the fan-gravel deposits with the finer fluvio-aeolian sands and silts of the floodplain. Thick deposits of cemented and uncemented gravels at Wadi Ghan contain at least two horizons of basaltic lava flows. Previously reported finds of artifacts from this gravel sequence together with the possibility of radiometric dating of the lavas, may provide a much-needed chronostratigraphic framework for the Quaternary deposits of the north-west Tripolitanian region.

This paper deals with the Libyan industrialisation programme since the revolution in 1969. Although Libya is striving to achieve national development within the next 20 years on a par with other advanced ‘Newly Industrialising Countries', it seems that the declining oil prices and the decreasing income from foreign trade since 1981 is retarding the build-up significantly. The main problem is that the necessary foreign labour can no longer be financed. The annual growth rates achieved in industry since 1981 indicate virtual stagnation.

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.