Pollen assemblages from the base of silty alluvium in three wadi-fills in Cyrenaica are described. They show evidence for forest clearance and cultivation, including the likely cultivation of olive. This suggests that the samples are broadly of Graeco-Roman age, and that the silty alluvium started to accumulate in these wadis as the result of the landscape impact of agricultural expansion.

This short paper presents a full list of the currently available radiocarbon dates from the work of Charles Daniels in the 1960s-1970s and the Fazzan Project (1997-2001). The dates can be grouped into several categories, by site or area, and demonstrate the potential of radiocarbon dating being applied to historic-period archaeology in the Sahara. This complements earlier Italian work on later prehistory. One of the most important conclusions to emerge is that the construction of castle-like buildings in Fazzan began within the Garamantian period and that some of the numerous well-preserved mudbrick fortified sites are thus rather earlier than has previously been envisaged. A second important conclusion is that the use of AMS dating can help to identify and confirm activity of the post-Garamantian and early Islamic phases, which has hitherto been elusive.

This paper reconsiders a scarab seal inscribed in the Cypriote syllabary and acquired at Cyrene in the mid-nineteenth century by the French consul Vattier de Bourville. The circumstances and period of its acquisition rule out the possibility of forgery, and the scarab is stylistically datable to the late sixth century BC. The flight of Queen Pheretima to Cyprus, and her subsequent return to Cyrene, are suggested as a possible context in which the seal may have arrived at Cyrene—perhaps as a token of personal religion of the queen herself. The seal shows Bes as Master of the Animals, reflecting a fusion of Levantine and Egyptian influences in Cypriote iconography.

During their second campaign at the temple of Apollo in August 1861, Robert Murdoch Smith and Edwin Porcher discovered a large marble female head along the northern edge of the building's peristasis. The sculpture was subsequently sent to the British Museum. A recent re-examination of the head suggests that it deserves serious more attention than it has hitherto merited, principally for its quality, and the fact that it displays characteristics highly indicative of Hellenistic royal portraiture. Furthermore, comparison with a similarly sized and modelled male head discovered inside the temple presently identified as ‘Ptolemy Apion’ suggests the two should be considered as companion pieces. This paper attempts to identify the subject of the female head within the context of other sculpture originating from the temple, together with epigraphy relating to the Ptolemaic family at Cyrene. It also explores the possibility of a royal portrait group erected inside Cyrene's primary sacred space.

This paper examines the impact on Cyrene of the Jewish Revolt of AD 115/6. Cyrene was particularly vulnerable to attack because of its status as regional capital and its inland location. The task of regeneration fell to Hadrian. Besides reconstructing buildings key to the resumption of Roman public life, Hadrian sent colonists to Cyrenaica, and exhorted the surviving population to assume the burden of reconstruction. By the late Antonine era, the population was restored and Cyrene entirely redeveloped in a striking amalgam of the latest fashions in architectural design and a deliberately conservative evocation of the city's Dorian origins.

A central Tunisian red slip ware lamp from Sabratha, published by D. M. Bailey in 1994, should be classified as Type Salomonson I/Atlante I. Its discus decoration is a personification of Autumn, a standing female figure with a basket of fruit as a seasonal attribute and a Cupid (Eros) sitting on it. The prototype of the moulded decoration motif appears as an appliqué on a Hayes 171 el-Aouja sigillata jug of C1 quality. The lamp, which probably dates from the third quarter of the third century or the late third century AD, was subjected to chemical analysis and comparison with recently published reference groups from central Tunisian pottery-making centres showed that it was made at the central Tunisian fine-ware potteries at Henchir el Guellal near Djilma. A/D and C1-C4 sigillata as well as Type Atlante IV A, VI B, VII A1, VII A2 and VIII C1a lamps were produced there from about the second quarter of the third century until the mid fifth century AD.

Rock paintings and engravings form a significant component of the archaeological record in Libya. Working in tandem with other disciplines, the study of rock-art can help provide a perspective on the past that can not be derived from archaeology alone. Following on from the work of the Fazzan Archaeological Project, recent research in the Wadi al-Ajal has identified a number of previously unrecorded rock-art sites in relation to their physical context, and these are reported here. The engravings display distinct distribution patterns in relation to specific topographic features in the wadi, and these are discussed with particular reference to the Maknusa Pass. Finally, the relationship between the rock-art and the landscape in this region is implicated in cultural development and transition.

The fourth season of the current project at Euesperides (Benghazi) took place in Spring 2002. Excavations continued in Areas P, Q and R, accompanied by limited augering work to determine the limits of surviving archaeology to the south of the Sidi Abeid mound. Excavations in Area P revealed part of a courtyard house from the penultimate phase of the site, with a probable andron and gunaikon. Its destruction is dated to after 261 BC. In Area Q work concentrated on the dismantling of street deposits and associated flanking houses from the later phases of the city's life; a soakaway drainage feature under the street was also investigated. The sequence of city wall circuits and their post-abandonment robbing was clarified. In Area R excavations established the structure of the mound of deposits deriving from the production of purple dye from Murex trunculus shellfish, and its relationship to the robbed-out walls of the courtyard building within which this activity occurred. The processing of ceramic finds underlines the active trading contacts enjoyed by Euesperides, with most of the fine pottery and a fifth of the coarse pottery being imported from overseas, and transport amphorae ranging in origin from the Straits of Gibraltar to the northern Aegean. The coin finds confirm that the city was abandoned after the death of Magas (258/250 BC); and it appears that the Herakles types, common at the site, were minted there under Thibron (323–322/322 BC).

This paper presents a short preliminary report of excavations at Balagrae (al-Beida) in 2001 and 2002. Two phases of building were investigated; the first, representing a possibly domestic or industrial structure which appears to have been destroyed in the earthquake of AD 365, and the second a crudely built late structure erected after the earthquake. Elements of a Roman Doric colonnade reused in the walls of Phase I suggests the existence nearby of a still earlier structure of some architectural pretension.