Several of my readers have asked me about the Greek and Roman ruins in Libya, and while I'm not an Anthropologist or an Archeologist, I've always had an interest in those subjects, and I guess, if my profession as a geologist put me in a country like Libya, which is essentially a desert and except for some scattered oasis's and some higher elevation terrain forestry areas north of Benghazi. But most of the country is basically a low humid desert area, which preserves historic buildings and even tracks in the sand. Now put an "Arkansas Arrowhead Hunter" there, where relics from at least two World Wars are scattered over the countryside as if the soldiers had left last week, along with thousands of items from various Civilizations, and you have an Amateurs Collector's Paradice. At least I thought so.

It had only been a few weeks after Vertis arrived when we did our first driving trip to see the area around Benghazi. I bought a Fiat 500 when I arrived, which was about the least expensive car on the market. It was OKAY, for short trips to the downtown ESSO Office, but at 6 foot 2 inches tall I was cramped driving it to put it mildly. Anyway, our first trip away from Benghazi was to drive along the coast road northeast to Cyrene.

Since Easter has just past, in three of the Gospels, they mention a man by the name of Simon of Cyrene as the one who carried the Cross for Christ. According to the Gospel accounts, the Roman Soldiers who were accompanying Jusus, who had stumbled from exhaustion, from carrying His Cross, pulled Simon of Cyrene, a visitor from Cyrene, which is now Libya out of the crowd to carry the Cross. Cyrene is about 120 miles northeast on the coast road from Benghazi, and several of the Americans I work with had been there, and they encouraged us to make the drive.

Libya was originally settled by Greeks who established five cities that were taken over by the Romans during the expansion of the Roman Empire. Cyrene is one of these, which has essentially been abandoned, and is basically a small village adjacent to a well-preserved and partially restored city ruins. We managed to get out of Benghazi without hitting a camel, which is sometimes difficult, and in less than an hour we pulled up to our first stop to visit the remains of a small Roman village. The Italians, who had controlled Libya prior to World War II, had restored an ancient Roman temple, and as we stood there, we attracted several teenage boys. One of the boys pulled out an antique Roman Coin and, after a little bargaining, I traded him an El Dorado House Department Store Ball-Point Pen for the Ancient Roman Coin.

Then it was back on the coast road, and after another 30 minutes of driving, the road continued on up in elevation to a Jebel, and as we gained altitude the temperature dropped 15 or so degrees, and the vegetation changed from a desert to more temperature trees. As I drove along with trees lining the road it was such a change that it was hard to believe.

In about 30 more minutes of driving we approached what seemed to be the center of the historic old town of Cyrene , where numerous buildings had been excavated, and some were restored. They were located along the top of the ridge. The new town was located a half mile or so away. We parked and started walking down what seemed to be the center of the historic town, and at the end of the main street one of the buildings had a sign in English "Museum." I had just commented to Vertis about how we were the only people in town, and at the Museum there wasn't even a person in the Museum. The Museum was small one story building, which I guessing was no more than 25 by 50 feet, but....my gosh, the collection of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts was breath-taking. I was especially taken with the life-size white marble statures of three scantily clad young women with arms linked titled "Three Graces" Well, with all the stops and museum touring it was getting late, and we were about to head back toward Benghazi when we happened to walk to the edge of the rocky ridge, and when we looked out toward the Mediterranean Sea I almost shouted: "Vertis! Look! " Below the ridge we were standing on, about a half mile away was the ancient Harbor of Apolonia, the port of Cyrene. We could see buildings and columns that had been restored, and off we went down the steep old road, which was grooved from chariot wheels. Well, it was worth the hike down to the harbor. The Italians, when they controlled Libya, had excavated and restored quite a bit of the old harbor town, including massive temple columns that we could see from Cyrene. We had stumbled into a bonus that we had not planned on seeing. Well, it was about a half mile to the ruins, and we were standing on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Of course, with the extra time to hike down to Apolonia, it was getting late and we hurried back up to where we had parked the car. It had been a breathtaking overall trip, and we talked about it ecstatically as we drove back to Benghazi.

I knew right then we were going to put a lot of miles on our little Fiat 500, and that trip to Cyrene would be the first of several dozen we would take over our two years in Libya.

© El Dorado News Times