Libyan Studies 38 (2007)

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Recent developments in Cyrene’s chora south of the Wadi bel Gadir

By Susan Kane∗ and Donald White∗∗

AbstractRecent work in the Wadi bel Gadir in the southern chora region of Cyrene, in particular the discovery of two temple precincts by the Italian Mission (Missione Archeologica a Cirene della Università degli Studi di Urbino) as well as an intensive topographic survey by the newly reconstituted University of Pennsylvania Expedition (now the Cyrenaica Archaeological Project) is providing important information about urban development to the west and southwest of the city of Cyrene. This paper offers an overview of the previous work in the area and some thoughts on the potential implications of the recent discoveries by the Italian Mission led by Professor Mario Luni and the Cyrenaican Archaeological Project (CAP) directed by Professor Susan Kane.

History of discoveries in the Wadi bel Gadir areaThe physical site of ancient Cyrene owes much of its configuration, and the city its eventual urban development, to the stream-cut wadis that divide its interior between two major hill systems and separate off its intramural southern perimeter zone from the upland countryside stretching toward Balagrae (modern al-Beida). The last-mentioned system forming the subject of this paper is known locally as the Wadi bel Gadir (Fig. 1).1

The chora region occupying the wadi’s southern slope, together with some of its ancient above-ground walls, has been cartographically recorded with varying degrees of success since the days of the Beechey brothers and Pacho (White 1984, figs 7–8; 1985, figs 9.1–9.2). The American Richard Norton was the first trained archaeologist to explore the Wadi bel Gadir during the winter of 1910–1911, in particular the grounds of what is now referred to as the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone located across the drain approximately opposite Cyrene’s Agora (White 1984, 8–10). Norton’s work was expanded three years later by Ettore Ghislanzoni who was the first to connect its grounds with Demeter (White 1984, 11–12), but perhaps out of considerations for military security as much as anything else, the Italian excavators following Ghislanzoni exhibited little interest in pursuing the clearance of other monuments south of the wadi drain. What attention was directed toward Norton’s and Ghislanzoni’s extramural sanctuary was largely bound up with attempts to correlate the physical remains with the procession of the Calathos described by Callimachus in his Hymn to Demeter (White 1984, 13–14, 47–48). Stucchi’s comprehensive study of Cyrenaican architecture was able to take account of a number of ancient structures along the upper reaches of Wadi bel Gadir (Stucchi 1975). For the most part the monuments listed by Stucchi had been discovered before World War II, but left largely unexcavated (see White 1985, 107).

∗ Department of Art, Oberlin College, USA.∗∗ Mediterranean Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA.

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The next large scale excavation work in the Wadi bel Gadir was conducted between 1969 and 1981 by the University of Pennsylvania Expedition (first licensed to the University of Michigan) under the direction of Professor Donald White before political problems between the US and Libya led to the project’s suspension. These excavations concentrated on a terraced complex. They soon revealed a series of retaining walls, shrines, storage facilities, and water installations, as well as abundant numbers of votives, inscriptions and statuary dedicated to Demeter and her daughter Kore-Persephone (Fig. 2). Spatially defined by an outer barrier of peribolos walls designed to ensure, among other things, some degree of insulation from public scrutiny (likely for the celebration of the Thesmophoria festival), the Wadi Bel Gadir grounds constitute a self-contained sanctuary that adopts the classic mould for the great majority of other sanctuary complexes throughout the Greek world.2

The American excavation results have been published in a variety of conference articles, annual preliminary reports in Libya Antiqua and the American Journal of Archaeology between 1971 and 1977, and beginning in 1984, in the on-going Final Reports series in which seven volumes

Figure 1. Plan of Cyrene (source: Goodchild 1971).

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have been published to date by the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

The first investigator to examine the possibility that the southern chora may have consisted of something more than a series of unintegrated, independent structures (from the point of view of the extant monuments as opposed to the literary evidence) was Shimon Applebaum, who served a term as the British Antiquities Officer responsible for Cyrene between 1943 and 1945 (see White 1984, 14–17). A now lost wartime aerial photo and his own on-site reconnaissance led to Applebaum’s discovering two important features. The first was a ‘broad masonry stairway’ which rises south for some 150 m from behind the mid-section of the upper terrace area of the Extramural Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary to connect on a flattened crest of the hill with what he described in print as an L-shaped walled complex (Applebaum 1954, 43; 1957, 159). The stairs were not recorded on any map or area plan published before the mid-1980s apart from Applebaum’s own sketch (Applebaum 1957, fig. 2). After that it appears for the first time on a 1985 area plan produced by the American Mission (White 1985, fig 9.5) and again more recently on the Italian Mission’s plan published in 2001 (Luni 2001, fig 20) (Fig. 3).

Applebaum describes his stairs as c. 14 m wide and divided by a kind of masonry spina into two unequal halves, 5 m and 9 m respectively. This suggests that its steps might have been

Figure 2. View of Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone from the north side of the Wadi bel Gadir (photo: S. Kane February 2007).

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flanked by a descending portico similar to the arrangement of the road from Cyrene urban center to its Sanctuary of Apollo (Goodchild 1971, fig. 13, pl. 80). The stairs are visible, but only barely, on a 1974 aerial survey photo (White 1984, fig. 4), but the American Expedition’s final study season in 1981 was able to take photos of some substantial but heavily overgrown remains of steps and their so-called spina (White 1984, figs 18–19).

According to Applebaum his hill-crest complex extended c. 28 m north to south and c. 30 m east to west (Applebaum 1957, 159). Some years ago he explained by personal communication to White that what he had referred to as an L-shaped building was actually composed of at least two independent structures, separated by a c. 7 m gap, and that his published sketch erred in showing them joined (Applebaum 1957, fig. 2). What he labels on his plan as building ‘A’ set-off to the east was built of ‘well cut drafted blocks whose bosses are obliquely tooled.’ This suggests to both Applebaum and the authors a tentative date for ‘A’ of mid-Hellenistic to the time of Tiberius, based on the similar treatment of other examples of Pentapolis masonry (White 1984, 16, ns. 78–79; 1993, 124, 131, 179). Parts of building ‘A’ were visible in 1981 but were not available for photography; by that time his building ‘B’ had disappeared into the courtyard of a modern farm. A third wing or court, ‘C’, could not be identified by White, but is said to run east

Figure 3. Plan of Wadi bel Gadir showing Applebaum’s hill-crest complex and Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone. Scale in meters (source: White 1985, fig. 9.5).

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across the top of Applebaum’s monumental stairs. In the context of the present discussion what is the most interesting aspect of Applebaum’s report is his initial theory, subsequently dropped after learning what the American Mission had found in 1969, that his hilltop buildings, stairs and lower complex were all part of an integrated Jewish complex occupying a large sector of the hillside region (Applebaum 1967, 161).3 According to this theory the synagogue-proper was situated on the hill’s crest.

Before the American mission had closed its operations in 1981 it was able to record, but not excavate, three terrace formations (Units 1–3) that extend east, parallel to the wadi bed from the southeast corner of the Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary’s upper level. In a 1985 evaluation of Applebaum’s theory about a hill-crest complex, White was mainly concerned with what connections the peribolos-defined sanctuary and its Units 1–3 terraces might have with Applebaum’s monumental stairs (which terminate just short of the sanctuary’s S20 Propylaeum entrance) and the hilltop complex (White 1985; White et al. 1992, 12, figs 10–11). The argument was made at that time that while the rural properties south of the hilltop complex may have played a potentially important role in the financial management of the sanctuary, the hilltop complex was unlikely to be a Jewish temple despite Applebaum’s material evidence (Applebaum 1957, 154–157, 159–160, fig. 3). A fragmentary lamp rim decorated with what is probably a menorah from inside the city walls south of the Agora and a peculiar capital (?) fragment carved with what might be another menorah found near a wing of the hilltop complex seemed insufficient to prove much of anything.4

On the other hand, the question of whether all of the elements – hilltop complex, stairs, eastern terraces, and the Extramural Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary-proper – could represent a unified set of features serving in a variety of capacities Demeter’s cult had to be left essentially unanswered because of insufficient evidence. While it is true that the Units 1–3 terraces extend the sanctuary’s grounds eastward, their layout seemed at the same time reminiscent of the later stoa extensions at Delphi, which interrupt that site’s east and west peribolos walls without essentially affecting the integrity of the sanctuary’s walled nucleus. As for the hilltop stairs, they could have served nothing more than a convenient means of communication between two quite independent sets of buildings. Clearly more work on the ground was needed, which remains the case to the present.

Turning now to the work of our Italian colleagues, in the early 1970s just a year or so after the American Mission had begun its excavations in the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in the Wadi bel Gadir, Professor Mario Luni spotted the remains of a large temple on the south slope of the wadi near its head in time for it to be incorporated into Stucchi’s monograph (Luni 2001, 1533, n. 2; Stucchi 1975, fig. 406a–b). Beginning in the 1990s, his investigations of this area have dramatically enlarged our understanding of what increasingly appears to be a major suburban extension south of the city’s urban core.

To date, the most striking features to be unearthed belong to the temple Luni had first noted twenty years earlier. It turns out to be a full-blown, early Classical Doric monument, which its excavator believes was dedicated to Demeter (Luni 2001, 1541, 1549–52; Luni 2006). To date, the temple, together with its monumental altar, portions of a walled peribolos, and propylaeum

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entrance, have all undergone partial excavation and restoration (Luni 2001; 2006). Attached to the propylaeum and flanking the ancient Cyrene-Balagrae road is what Luni describes as a small but elegant Hellenistic stoa (Luni 2006, 152).

Approximately 145 m northwest of the temple exist remains of a Hellenistic Greek theatre cleared by the Italian Mission between 2003 and 2005 (Luni 2006, 153–54). At least three terraces have been noted, and to some extent graphically recorded, between the Doric Temple and the theatre (Luni 2006, fig. 10). In addition, a substantial terracing has been plotted on the Italian Mission’s area plan west of the theatre (Luni 2006, fig. 10). In the course of his 2006 season, Luni uncovered the podium of yet another temple and vestiges of a new propylaeum on a small rise to the southwest of the Doric Temple along the road to Balagrae (Fig. 4).

Figure 4. In situ features and their relationship to remains outside the concession area. Scale in meters (drawing: H. Goodchild 2006).

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Luni believes that all of the terrain along the southern slope of Wadi bel Gadir, starting with the Doric Temple in the east and running without any break west to include the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, constitutes a single, uninterrupted sacred complex – what he terms a ‘vasto santuario a cielo aperto, sacro a Demetra e a divinità connesse con la fertilità’ (Cardinali 2006, 127; Luni 2006, 151–155; Mei 2006, 164). Before discussing further this interesting theory we must now turn to the renewed activities of the American expedition.

New survey work by the Cyrenaica Archaeological ProjectIn 2004 the old American Expedition license was reissued by the Department of Antiquities

Figure 5. Data points recorded over the concession area. Scale in meters (drawing: H. Goodchild 2006).

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to Oberlin College. At that time Susan Kane replaced as project director Donald White, who had recently retired from the University of Pennsylvania. The new concession, designated the Cyrenaican Archaeology Project (CAP), was authorised by the Department to investigate an enlarged research area defined along its northern border by the wadi drain (Figs 3 and 4). The resulting quadrangular zone runs east for c. 370 m to where it abuts the north–south line of the Italian Mission’s concession directly west of the aforementioned Wadi bel Gadir theatre. It rises south from the wadi drain for some 340 m to Applebaum’s hill-crest complex. The excavated core of the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone occupies its northwest corner.

In June 2006 Kane arranged for a joint British and Libyan team under the direction of Professor Vincent Gaffney and Dr Gareth Sears from the University of Birmingham to undertake a close resolution topographical survey of the CAP’s new concession area in order to create a digital elevation model (DEM).5 In total approximately 70,000 points were collected over a project area constituting more than 127,000 sq. m (Fig. 5).

The terrain model resulting from these data show that the natural terraces form an L-shape, with the apex to the southeast. In addition, a walkover of the study area was undertaken in order to assess the topography together with any above ground archaeological remains. Due to the density of remains only stonework that appeared to be in situ was mapped. This mostly consisted of wall foundations from former buildings, and most were no higher than the current ground level. A few of the walls survived to one or two courses, and in some instances the ground plans of entire buildings could be observed. On completion of the topographic survey all visible in situ archaeological features were mapped and overlaid onto the DEM (Fig. 6). The walls were shown as polygons and, as such, could be compared with any features visible on the satellite images. This work provides a useful overview of the whole complex and its relation to features outside the concession area that were also highly visible on the satellite image.

The results illustrated in figures 4 and 6 show the extent of remains that can be traced above the ground and within the area of the CAP concession. It is very unlikely, given what has been found in previous excavations, that these visible remains represent the sum total of what survives. The layout of the ground suggests that the existing structures may be linked to other features which lie buried within terraces and that other structures probably remain to be discovered.

The survey procedure also highlighted certain features which lie outside the concession area and their relation to the terrain. These included the theatre just outside the concession area to the east, and Luni’s recently excavated temples and buildings which lie a further 150 m to the east. A series of mausolea and a probable road just to the south of the concession area were also visible in the satellite image. Of particular interest is another probable temple podium with staircase and plaster-lined drainage channel. Once overlaid it was apparent that this temple was situated on a small rise mid-way up the main terrace system (Fig. 4).

The DEM also illustrates how the L-shaped terracing provides a natural change of orientation in the Wadi bel Gadir, one that affects the orientation and elevation of the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in relation to other structures in the area. If the Thesmophoria were indeed practiced in this complex, perhaps its orientation, along with its high peribolos walls, was intended to heighten the exclusivity of the area.

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What the CAP survey thus far seems to demonstrate is, inter alia, the existence of a significant scatter of man-made features over the slope separating Applebaum’s hill-crest complex from the upper or rear terrace area of the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone. A similar density of features is detectable as far as the concession’s eastern boundary. While most of these elements are still difficult to identify, the survey suggests that a podium platform, perhaps for a temple, may have existed approximately half way up the slope from the wadi drain at a point roughly 70 m west of the concession’s eastern boundary. The sighting of walls paralleling the line of the wadi drain in the concession’s northeast quarter could also signal the presence of further terracing.6 Otherwise the sheer random character of the recorded features precludes drawing any general conclusions at this time apart from the fact that the slope would appear to be densely covered with separate, rather modest individual structures instead of being developed as the continuation of a single, monumental complex. Hopefully CAP’s planned future laser-scanning and geophysical surveys will further clarify these preliminary observations.

Is the entire southern chora dedicated to Demeter?According to our Italian colleagues, all of the terrain along the southern slope of Wadi bel Gadir, starting with the Doric Temple in the east and running without break west to include the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, constitutes a single, uninterrupted sacred complex.7 Luni’s hypothesis appears to rest primarily on the association of his Doric Temple with the cult of Demeter.

In particular, the statuary recovered from its interior appears to be the key to his identification of the resident cult. It housed three major marble statues (Luni 2001, 1541; 2006, 149, figs 3–5) along with a handsome pair of Severe-style sphinx acroteria (Luni 2001, figs 10–11; 2006,

Figure 6. Digital elevation model of the concession area showing L-shaped terracing and mapped features (drawing: H. Goodchild 2006).

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147–49, fig. 6). Of the former, unquestionably the most important for the present argument, are fragments of a battered marble figure of a draped seated woman taken from the naos (Luni 2001, 1541; 2006, 147, 149, fig. 3). Reported to be veiled, the statue has yet to be published in any detail, and to the present authors’ knowledge, no photos of its upper bust and head have been released. However, the Italian archaeologists are confident that it represents Demeter.

In keeping with this conclusion it should be pointed out that similarly seated female statues have been found in the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, as well as others elsewhere in the city of Cyrene (all recovered headless, but see White 1984, figs 10–11; 1971, pl. 28; 1973, pl. 100b; 1979, pls 57b and 58a; Kane 1994). In addition, the use of a veil is associated with Demeter statues found elsewhere (for example, Stewart 1990, pl. 571). On the other hand, veiled standing and seated (or enthroned) statues of both divine as well as mortal female subjects are in no sense limited to Demeter and her daughter even in this restricted corner of the ancient world (for example, Paribeni 1959, nos 63, 85, 86, 233 and 234; Kuskinson 1975, nos 64, 72, 117, 118; and for Benghazi, see ibid. no. 134). Veiled standing and seated Hera images are, for example, widely distributed outside of the Pentapolis region (see Stewart 1990, pls 342, 258, 259; LIMC 4, 671–75, nos 99, 110, 111, 112a and 133a). There is furthermore the entire class of funeral stelai to consider in which the seated relief images of women are frequently shown velate (Clairmont 1993). And while the standard image of the seated Cybele shows her as unveiled (for example the Pergamene Cybele, see Bieber 1955, fig. 274), the enthroned Moirai occasionally are (LIMC 6, 639, no. 3).

As regards Cybele, it seems worth noting that one of the five marble enthroned Cybele statuettes published in the same issue as the temple under discussion was actually found inside the Doric temple (C.L. 2006). Since this figure is unequivocally identified as Cybele by her flanking lions, she surely ought to be included in any future discussion of the resident cult.

Finally, while the American Expedition’s previous excavations in the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone have unearthed statues and statuettes with inscribed bases specifically dedicating them to Demeter or Kore, a number of other statues and statuettes were also found in the sanctuary with iconography more appropriate to the goddesses Cybele, Aphrodite, Hekate, and Isis. The god Dionysos, who plays a conspicuous role in the rites at Eleusis (Mylonas 1961, 330), may have had his own shrine somewhere in or near the sanctuary (White 1984, 5, n. 14, 6, 22). These latter deities may be considered examples of normal syncretistic activity within the Sanctuary, similar to practices seen in other temple areas in Cyrene, but should not be regarded as proof that the Extramural Sanctuary was primarily dedicated to their worship. This is not a forum in which to argue what is a complicated issue in detail, but, if the newly discovered Doric temple’s dedication were to be based on just the evidence of the one fragmentary statue without the support of epigraphic evidence, it seems to us that its connection to Demeter should await further corroboration.

There are, however, two other sets of evidence which require consideration, namely the lamps and the terracottas. The Italian Mission recovered 94 lamps in the southern aisle of the temple’s cella (Panico 2006, 165). They were deposited in a small, below-pavement level trench refilled with earth mixed with ashes, the burnt bones of small animals, and sherds. Many of the

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lamps betray signs of burning. They date from the second half of the second century to the first quarter of the first century BC, and while they cannot represent an original foundation deposit, it is likely that they stem from the practice of nocturnal sacrificial rites taking place during a relatively short time-frame in the temple’s history.

The nocturnal use of lamps in Demeter’s rites is well-attested elsewhere. The pre-1981 American expedition discovered some 550 lamps in just its S19 Lamp and Pottery Dump (White 1973, 212–213; 1984, 21), while hundreds more were excavated throughout other parts of the same site. But as in the case with the temple’s statue of the seated and veiled woman, caches of lamps do not, in and by themselves, provide conclusive proof for Demeter’s cult. Many other nocturnal cult sites have left similar concentrations of lamps which also display signs of use, and while this is again not a matter that can be entered into in any detail here, just to cite a single example, the Palaimonion at the Isthmia has produced exactly the same kind of evidence (Broneer 1958, 16).

Finally, there are the terracotta figurines. Both the soil around the Doric Temple’s altar and by the theatre, off to the northwest, produced deposits of figurines (Cardinali 2006, 127–130, figs 4–6). They represent what has come to be regarded as standard types of Demeter offerings including draped females wearing polos headdresses, fragmentary boucrania, and comic theatral masks, but as Cardinali herself points out in a recent study, the same types often appear in sanctuaries dedicated to other deities, including complexes found in Cyrene (Cardinali 2006, 129, ns. 44 and 45) and nearby Apollonia (Cardinali 2006, 19, n. 48). They can, in other words, in no sense be taken as proof that their contexts are necessarily connected with Demeter.

A corollary to the issue of the Doric Temple’s identity is the apparently perennial question of the relevance of Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter to the local situation. Luni is simply the latest in a series of scholars, starting with Anti and then including Coppola, Romanelli, Pesce, Chamoux, Stucchi, and Bacchielli, if not others who have escaped the authors’ notice, to accept such a connection.8 Setting aside the very real issue of whether or not Callimachus’ poem describes a real city (Cyrene, Alexandria, Cos? All three have been suggested), the issues of whether the procession of the sacred Calathus held during the celebration of the Thesmophoria was restricted to the interior of the walled city or included the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone and whether or not it was organised outside the walls and then ended up in the Agora have been rather endlessly discussed. The only difference now is that with the proposed exponential increase in the size of the theoretical sacred space outside of Cyrene’s walls, the Doric Temple can take the place of the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone as the climax of the procession (Luni 2001, 1551, fig. 20; 2006, 152). For our part the present authors still feel that it is a mistake to confuse Callimachus’ poem with Pausanias or the Blue Guide, but are under no illusions that this will end the debate.

So where does this leave us? Time, especially if combined with the recovery of new inscriptions tied directly to Demeter, may indeed validate Professor Luni’s contention that all of the grounds south of the wadi bed were consecrated to Demeter, her daughter, and a retinue of associated fertility deities. The future retrieval of statuary associated with less equivocal iconography could have the same effect. If this happens, it will be nothing short of revolutionary.

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As plotted on the recently published Italian plan, the east–west length of the proposed sacred zone amounts to c. 550 m, while its north–south spread could extend to more than 200 m, depending on how far back up the wadi slopes one wishes to stretch it (for the moment all that can be said about Applebaum’s hill-crest complex is that it is connected in some loose sense by his monumental stairs with the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone).

What this results in is a suburban tract amounting to more than 110,000 sq. m. Set against the interior spaces recorded for the largest Demeter sanctuaries elsewhere, the results are impressive. Eleusis, including its stadium, occupies less than c. 30,000 sq. m, Chthonian Gods at Acragas c. 9,000 sq. m, the Demeter Sanctuary at Pergamon c. 5,000 sq. m, and Priene’s intramural shrine c. 720 sq. m. Looking further afield, this can be compared with the sacred Altis at Olympia which incorporates c. 45,000 sq. m and the walled precinct of Delphi which surrounds less than 24,000 sq. m. In other words, if truly set aside for the exclusive worship of Demeter, the Wadi bel Gadir grounds would be, if nothing else, unprecedentedly large.

Future results aside, in terms of what has been already discovered since Applebaum’s day, in particular by the Italian mission, the entire chora region south of the wadi must be assigned an importance simply incapable of being recognised in the earlier literature. How this should be interpreted in light of Cyrene’s overall urban development is a large matter that will occupy scholars concerned with the growth of the city for some time to come.

By way of closing this modest review, let us consider a single example of what could result based on what has already been found. One of the central enigmas connected to the American expedition’s Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone is what happened to the structures making up its Upper Sanctuary between c. AD 220 and the earthquake which dealt its grounds such a devastating blow in AD 262. Nearly all were dismantled to their piano nobile levels and their floors torn up. The late John Lloyd speculated that this was the work of people stripping the by-then moribund sanctuary of its reusable materials (Lloyd 1985, 117). He may well be right, but it is a strange fact that the archaeological picture for the third and early fourth-century AD intramural city provides no clue as to where its columns and other forms of architectural decoration might have been reused. On the other hand, closer scrutiny of the recently uncovered Wadi bel Gadir area monuments could conceivably supply an explanation closer at hand. Goodchild attributed the shrinkage of Cyrene’s urban defences to the time of Tenegrinus Probus’ campaigns against the nomadic Marmaridae during the reign of Claudius Gothicus (Goodchild 1971, 44–45). It would be ironic indeed if this response had been preceded by a program to refurbish some of the chora’s other monuments with frusta cannibalised from the old Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary.

AcknowledgementsSince 2004 our work at Cyrene has been generously supported by a wide range of institutions, foundations and private individuals whom we would like to take this occasion to name as well as to thank. Welcome institutional backing was received from Oberlin College, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the University of Birmingham, UK, The National Geographic Society, and the US State Department Ambassadors Fund. Major foundation assistance was provided by The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The J.J. Medvekis Foundation, The Pew Foundation, The Nancy and Thomas Silberman Foundation, and from a foundation which wishes to remain anonymous. Finally, the following individuals deserve our heartfelt thanks for

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their personal encouragement and generosity. March and Philip Cavanaugh, Susan and Cummins Catherwood, Jr., Marlene and Peter Dallo, Millie and Gene Fiedorek, Ian Koblick, Craig Mullen, John Medvekis, Annette Merle-Smith, Katherine and Richard Millard, Barbara Stanton, Jill Tarlau, and Lawrence Whitemore.

Notes1 Translated as ‘valley of verdure’ by the Beechey brothers and Smith and Porcher. Barth renders it somewhat

more poetically as ‘the ravine with pools of standing water’. (see White 1984, 6, n. 27, 31, n. 2.) No ancient nomenclature appears to survive for this region of the chora.

2 ‘A sanctuary had to be set apart from the secular world, which surrounded it, and therefore required a precise boundary. This might be marked by a wall, and entered through a formal gateway or propylon; or it could be defined by simply by a series of marker stones’ (Tomlinson 1976, 17). For a discussion of the celebration of the Thesmophoria in this complex see White (1984, 11, n. 34).

3 Obviously unaware at the time of Ghislanzoni’s connection of the site with Demeter, he later revised his identification to reflect the results of the work of the University of Pennsylvania expedition (Applebaum 1979, 194, n. 294).

4 Jewish lamps have a way of ending up in unexpected places. In the mid-1960s White found a nearly complete Jewish lamp decorated with a menorah in the excavation spoil heap next to the West Church at Al-Atrun.

5 The complete 2006 report may be read at http://www.cyrenaica.org The survey was done using a Leica SR530 Differential GPS (base station and rover) to provide a close resolution topographic survey and to map visible features. A control point was established on high ground, away from physical obstructions, close to the southern extent of the project area. This served as the ‘base station’ for the duration of the survey. The base station (Leica SR530 receiver) logged data from the GPS satellite constellation and broadcast real time corrections to the SR530 rover. This allowed the collection of survey data providing a relative positional accuracy of ± 0.02 m (Cuttler et al. 2006).

6 These may conform with Luni’s sightings, but do not exactly align with his plan (see Luni 2006, 153–154).7 ‘Va osservato che l’area di disposizioni sacre a Demetra (D. White, The Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and

Persephone at Cyrene, I–V, Philadelphia 1984–1993) va ormai considerate l’estremo limbo occidentale del grande Santuario della stessa dea’ (Luni et al. 2006, 152, n. 6).

8 Discussed at some length in White (1984, 13–14, 18–19, 47–48). See also Bacchielli (1990, 5–33; 1992, 128, n. 8).

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