ARCHAEOLOGY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE IN POST-REVOLUTION LIBYA

Since the February 2011 revolution that ousted Gaddafi, Libya has been struggling with the challenge of building a new country. The current perilous condition of the Libyan state now endangers a remarkable and varied range of cultural heritage dating from the prehistoric, Greco-Roman, and Islamic periods, including five UNESCO World Heritage sites (fig. 1). Three of these are Greco-Roman archaeological sites are located on the Mediterranean coast - Cyrene in the east (banner); Sabratha and Leptis Magna in the west. Another is further inland, nearly 500 km to the southwest of Tripoli, the Islamic desert trading city of Ghadames with its distinctive vernacular architecture, and in the far southwest of the country is the Tadrart Acacus, a massif that contains thousands of prehistoric rock-art sites, some dating as early as 9,000 B.C.E.