Libya

The aim of this book is to bring to life a group of Greco-Roman cities long lost under the desert sands of North Africa. Situated on the Mediterranean coast in what is now Libya, these wealthy, elegant, and powerful cities, were the main urban centers of two neighboring provinces during the Roman empire: Tripolitania and Cvrenaica. Clinging to a thin strip of fertile land between the desert and the sea, the cities came to see themselves as "Rome in Africa,” and through close contact with the civilizations of ancient Greece, Carthage, and Egypt, they created a unique culture. Only Tripoli (ancient Oea) has been continually inhabited: the other cities, devastated by earthquakes and fatally weakened by the fall of the Roman empire, were abandoned to the encroaching sands. Major archeological research has now been underway for decades and continues today: there is still much to unearth. The discoveries at these sites offer a unique and fascinating view of both Africa and the Greco-Roman world: entire cities of marble and white sandstone, with theaters and public baths, temples, fine houses decorated wi th frescoes and mosaics, shops and workshops, streets lined with porticoes to provide shade from the intense African sun ... all painstakingly restored and documented. The main cities visited are Lepcis, Gyrene, Sabratha, Apollonia, and Ptolemais.