Still hope, though scant, for Libya’s cultural heritage

We have nearly forgotten about the war that raged through Libya to free the country of Kaddafi’s iron rule. Eventually, Kaddafi was killed, the regime was overthrown, and what is left today is a relatively lawless country without a central authority. It no longer makes headlines in the news bulletins, and we can only guess about the fate of its unique and rich archaeological patrimony.

Libya has many more historical treasures than we would expect at first sight. UNESCO has listed at least six of them on their World Heritage List: Cyrene, the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cyrene, Leptis Magna, Sabratha, Ghadames (an oasis in the Tripolitania on the Algerian border), and Tadrart Acacus in the Acacus Mountains (prehistoric rock art).

During the uprising, the main fear was allegations of pro-Kaddafi troops operating from the ancient cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, using the ruins as a shield to hide their explosives. It seems they have not suffered significant damage. Still, on the other hand, since in the aftermath the country has been left more or less lawless, treasure hunters, criminals, and opportunists were able to steal nearly 8,000 artifacts from a Benghazi bank vault, among which a substantial number of ancient gold, silver and bronze coins that were easy to negotiate on the black market. As so often in the Near and Middle East, archiving and cataloging were never carried out, making it difficult to trace and estimate the loss of Libya’s cultural heritage. Damage, however, is considered less significant than the looting and vandalism that occurred in Iraq, for instance, but we have nothing to prove otherwise.

It has to be said that NATO’s airstrikes at the time of the revolt were well-directed and avoided sites like Leptis Magna and Cyrene. Museums are more straightforward to protect from treasure seekers than the open antique sites of Sabratha, Leptis Magna, or Cyrene. The biggest problem with cultural sites in Libya is the lack of training and resources for their safe-keepers. They often don’t even have the simplest and basic know-how. Smaller or lesser-known sites are situated in isolated areas that can easily escape control. Those in the Cyrenaica, like Ptolemais, Apollonia, and Qasr Libya, falling more or less under the authority of Benghazi may be worse off than the cities of Tripolitania.

I often wonder what is really happening to those historic places where archaeologists have invested so many loving hours of their life. Each of the sites is absolutely unique and certainly deserves to be opened up to a broader public. Let’s hope for a better future rather sooner than later.