Libya

Overview

Unlike its neighbours Tunisia and Egypt, Libya is only just emerging as a tourist destination after many years of international sanctions. Currently it is usually only possible to get a tourist visa as part of a group, but if you want a vacation without all the trappings of tourist resorts, yet bursting with history, now is the time to go.

Libya is one of the largest countries in Africa, with nearly 2000kms.of Mediterranean coastline and vast areas of unspoilt desert. The country is steeped in at least 10,000 years of visible history, from the ancient rock art of the Sahara, through the superbly preserved Greek and Roman towns along the coast. With a stunning backdrop of the bright blue Mediterranean, Leptis Magna is the greatest of these, well deserving its designation as a World Heritage site. Sabratha to the west and Cyrene 1000kms to the east should also be on every tour itinerary.

The population of Libya is very small in comparison with its size and the main concentrations of people are in and around Tripoli, in the west and Benghazi in the east. Tripoli is a must for every visitor, with its fascinating medina, with narrow streets, many mosques and bustling souks. The massive walls of the castle used to stand as bastions to the sea, but now house the recently reconstructed and extremely impressive museum.

The road south from Tripoli leads through the western Mountains, with their relics of the indigenous Berber population and troglodyte dwellings, and on to Ghadames. Here...more

History

Libya has a long history of incursions and empires, but it did not become a unified and independent country until 1951. Historically it had three regions of Triploitania to the west, Cyrenaica to the east and The Fezzan to the south.

Around 8,000 BC, Neolithic peoples of the Sahara started recording their lives in rock paintings, showing an abundance of wildlife and vegetation, long since gone. 7,000 years later Phoenician traders, from the eastern Mediterranean, introduced olive growing to the North African coast and started a successful trade in olive oil. They founded the ports of Sabratha, Leptis and Oea (modern day Tripoli). Also exporting gold, ivory, ebony and slaves from the Sudan brought north through the desert trading routes. This Punic empire, now centred on Carthage controlled the coast from Tripolitania to the Atlantic and continued its dominance until the rise of the Roman Empire in the first century BC.

In the east the Greeks established the city of Cyrene in 631 BC, on the Green Mountain or Jebel Akhdar. Here even today a variety of agriculture takes place in a more moderate climate than the rest of Libya. The Greek influence was already waning with the arrival of the Romans and it was not until the second century AD that the magnificent roman towns, still to be seen today, reached their peak.

An earthquake in 365 AD caused the final demise of the Roman occupation and large areas of the shoreline towns became buried under the sands, only to be partially...more