Tag Archives: Antiquity

ASOR Receives $100,000 Grant for Cyrene Conservation Initiative in Libya

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Cyrene Sanctuary Aerial

ASOR Receives $100,000 Grant for Cyrene Conservation Initiative in Libya

Media Release

ASOR Receives $100,000 Grant for Cyrene Conservation Initiative in Libya
Project to Preserve and Educate at Flood-Damaged World Heritage Site

WASHINGTON, DC — The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) is pleased to announce it has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the American Institute for Roman Culture in support of the Cyrene Conservation Initiative—a conservation and heritage education project at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cyrene in eastern Libya.

Developed in close collaboration with the Libyan Department of Antiquities, the Cyrene Conservation Initiative is a response to the devastating impacts of Storm Daniel, which caused catastrophic flooding in September 2023. The project will focus on key areas of the ancient city that were particularly affected by the flood, including Valley Street and the Sanctuary of Apollo terrace, one of the most iconic districts in the city.

“Working together to save and appreciate shared cultural heritage is a crucial element in uniting people today,” said ASOR President Sharon Herbert. “ASOR is proud to be part of this project with archaeologists from the Libyan Department of Antiquities and the American Institute for Roman Culture and Ancient Rome Live.”

Project objectives include:

  • Documenting and protecting heritage damaged by the flooding;
  • Restoring safe access to monuments on the Sanctuary of Apollo terrace;
  • Enhancing on-site interpretation through new educational materials for Libyan and international visitors.

“ASOR has been privileged to work closely with Libyan partners and the U.S. State Department to invest more than $1,000,000 in heritage and education projects over the past decade,” said ASOR Executive Director Dr. Andrew G. Vaughn. “The heritage of Libya is rich and varied, exhibiting important international connections for millennia. ASOR is now honored to begin a partnership with American Institute for Roman Culture and Ancient Rome Live to ensure that the important Roman heritage in Cyrene is conserved and protected from future flood damage.”

Executive Director of American Institute for Roman Culture and Ancient Rome Live, Darius Arya, says, “we are so pleased that for our inaugural grant distribution we are able to partner with such a leader in the field of conservation and participate in the important preservation of such a historically relevant site as Cyrene!”

From its beginning as the earliest Greek colonization in North Africa, Cyrene became a major center of Greek and Roman culture and a dramatic example of urban life on the edge of a mountainous plateau. The Cyrene Conservation Initiative and Ancient Rome Live will help ensure that this unique expression of Libyan heritage endures for future generations. For more information about the Ancient Rome Live online learning platform, please visit https://ancientromelive.org/.

For more information about ASOR’s cultural heritage efforts, please visit www.asor.org/chi.

About ASOR

The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to initiate, encourage, and support research into, and public understanding of, the history and cultures of the Near East and wider Mediterranean world, from the earliest times. ASOR fosters original research, archaeological excavations, and explorations; encourages scholarship in the Near East’s basic languages, cultural histories, and traditions; builds support for Near Eastern studies; and advocates high academic standards. ASOR is apolitical and has no religious affiliation.

About the American Institute for Roman Culture
The American Institute for Roman Culture is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to the promotion, preservation, and study of ancient Roman history and culture through innovative educational programming and heritage protection projects.

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Media Contact:
Rachel Bernstein
Email: rachel.bernstein@asor.org
Phone: 703-789-9234

The American Society of Overseas Research
The James F. Strange Center
209 Commerce Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
E-mail: info@asor.org
Telephone: 703-789-9229

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ASOR-affiliated archaeology project finds new evidence of earliest farming in NW Africa

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ASOR-Affiliated Morocco Project Publishes Evidence About Bronze Age North Africa

Media Release
February 20, 2025

ASOR-affiliated archaeology project finds new evidence of earliest farming in NW Africa

 

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A new study in the journal Antiquity presents the first evidence of a Bronze Age-era farming settlement in the northwest Maghreb following an ASOR-affiliated excavation in Kach Kouch, Morocco.

The study, titled “Rethinking late prehistoric Mediterranean Africa: architecture, farming and materiality at Kach Kouch, Morocco,” was published on February 17 in the journal Antiquity by Cambridge University Press. Authors Hamza Benattia, Youssef Bokbot, Jorge Onrubia-Pintado and the rest of the Kach Kouch Archaeological Project team, primarily comprising students from the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage of Morocco (INSAP), have been conducting excavations and surveys at Kach Kouch, Morocco since 2021 to further the understanding of this hitherto little-known period. They revealed in the Antiquity study the remains of a settlement occupied from 1300 to 600 BCE that was a farming economy before the arrival of the Phoenician conquest.

The team’s research demonstrated that settled occupation in this region stems from social and economic dynamics within local North African communities since at least 2200 BCE, rather than being a result of later interactions with Phoenician communities. Despite the settlement of Phoenician communities along the northern Moroccan coast from the eighth century BCE onwards, local cultural traditions persisted in the inner valleys of the western Rif, Morocco, until the sixth to fifth centuries BCE.

The Kach Kouch settlement practiced animal husbandry and crop cultivation, with crops being processed and stored on site, based on the published findings. Farming, herding, building, and material culture continued from the eighth to seventh centuries BCE to further emphasize the “primary role played by local communities in shaping the social, cultural and economic dynamics of the emergent Moroccan Bronze Age and subsequent Early Mauretanian period” at Kach Kouch, according to the study.

Thanks to the support of an ASOR Stevan B. Dana Grant, the Kach Kouch team continued the research in northwestern Morocco’s Rif mountains in 2023 and early 2024. Extensive survey and targeted excavation along the valleys of Oued Laou and Stehat identified five previously undocumented sites. The newly discovered sites attest to a more stable settled occupation in the region than previously thought, spanning from the Late Prehistory to the Early Mauretanian Period (from c. 2200-400BC), a novel signature for non-Nilotic North Africa.

The publication’s findings stimulate interest in the overlooked region and encourage new narratives in the scholarly discourse on North African archaeology.

 

About ASOR

The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to initiate, encourage, and support research into, and public understanding of, the history and cultures of the Near East and wider Mediterranean world, from the earliest times. ASOR fosters original research, archaeological excavations, and explorations; encourages scholarship in the Near East’s basic languages, cultural histories, and traditions; builds support for Near Eastern studies; and advocates high academic standards. ASOR is apolitical and has no religious affiliation.

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The American Society of Overseas Research
The James F. Strange Center
209 Commerce Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
E-mail: info@asor.org
Telephone: 703-789-9229

Browse the News Archive