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.

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.

In the Gebel Garian, about 20 kilometres south of Asabaa, the map-makers of 1964 indicated an ancient wall (Fig. 1) called Hadd Hajar (i.e. wall of stone) running south-west for six kilometres from Ras al Tays al Abyad (858 m; the Hill of the White Goat) on which stood a watch tower, to Ras al Said (764 m). The country crossed by Hadd Hajar is about 690-730 m above sea-level with a gently-undulating surface constituting a fairly open and level valley. The hills are covered with esparto-grass. On the west the Wadi Wamis winds among closely-set hills while, in the north-east, the wall is carried for a further three quarters of a kilometre across a narrow valley from Ras al Tays al Abyad to another hill Ras al Saqifah. An old track comes southwards down this valley flanked on the east side by a barrier of hills over 800 m high. Where the track crosses the wall there is a Roman building (Gasr al Saqifah) with traces of an archway for people and flocks to pass through. Two kilometres to the south is an old cistern (Majin Saqifah) presumably Roman. Beyond, the track continues about 25 kilometres to a large well, Bir al Shaqaykah (Sceghega), after which it is another 28 kilometres south-eastwards to Mizdah on the Wadi Sofeggin.

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).

The large numbers of roughly-cut inscriptions on the inner face of the ancient city wall at Tocra, in the area south of the east gate, have often attracted attention. Interest in them flagged when it was realised that they consisted essentially of personal names; but recent developments in onomastic studies have given a new significance to personal names. Moreover since R. G. Goodchild dug there in the sixties it has been apparent that the inscribed stretch of the city-wall had been utilised for one side of a gymnasium courtyard and that the inscriptions on it are ephebic, so that they should throw some light on a civic instituion very much at the heart of the city's life. My purpose here, however, is simply to clarify the date at which the surviving texts were cut.

The gymnasium has produced two main and one subsidiary series of texts. The first consists of graffiti on blocks found in situ on the inner face of the city wall as described above, and also on the inner face of the gymnasium wall flanking the main east/west street of the city, with additional items on blocks which patently derive from the gymnasium, but are found loose or re-used in many other parts of the site. Their appearance gives the impression that they were the work of the ephebes themselves and, since they often overcut one another, that they were produced over a period of time. They normally present personal names without patronymics, often in groups or in pairs, and with a brief indication that the associated persons were customary companions and sometimes certainly lovers.

A detailed study of the coarse pottery of Cyrenaica, and particularly Berenice, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (Riley, in press) indicates that, with the exception of the total disappearance of locally made amphoras, the Romanisation of Cyrenaica made no impact on the local pottery industry until around the middle of the second century A.D. Indeed, at a time of rapidly increasing prosperity in Cyrenaica from the Augustan period, the local pottery industry continued to produce poor quality goods in general. These were generally of the poor, shell rich fabrics (for these and Cyrenaican fabrics in general, see Riley, 1979), and comprised a wide range of variation within broad type groupings, which were of the characteristic, elegantly curved Hellenistic tradition.

When change came, around the middle of the second century, it was sweeping. The poorer quality shell rich fabric was superceded by the harder, sturdier, lime rich fabrics, and a completely new repertoire of angular and corrugated forms was introduced. This development appears to follow a similar pattern in the Aegean region during the early part of the second century, so that by the latter part of that century there is a striking typological similarity between the various coarse wares in Greece, Crete and Cyrenaica.

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.

During 1979 and the early part of 1980 the Government of Libya was engaged in a review of the state of social and economic development of the country with a view to preparing a long-range strategy to the year 2000. The exercise involved assessment of the position in 1979 and examination of alternative courses of economic change for the country as a whole and for its constituent regions. While this was far from being a first essay in economic and social planning, it represented a new time horizon (twenty rather than five years) and a rather different approach from previous proposals. In particular, it had become apparent from 1980 that Libyan oil reserves, when set against probable production to reserves ratios for the 1980-2000 period, would be fast depleting by the turn of the century. The last two decades of the twentieth century could be the last years in which Libya could lay the basis for economic survival while still comparatively wealthy from the proceeds of bulk oil exports.

This short article will set out to discuss the resource base of the al Khalij area which was the source of the largest part of Libyan crude oil and natural gas supply and which might be expected to be the region on which Libyan prosperity might be founded in the post-oil era.