Since 2007, the Archaeological Mission of Roma Tre University has conducted surveys in the territory of Lepcis Magna, in a peri-urban area between Ras elMergheb and Ras el-Hammam. To date, 168 sites have been surveyed. From the analysis of this data collection can be drawn a synthesis of the landscape's evolution from the Hellenistic to the end of the Ottoman period (including the analysis of battlefields and military structures related to the Italo-Turkish War and World War I). As elsewhere in Tripolitania, the Roman productive and settlement system was based on the villae and farms with torcularia for olive (and wine) production. However, the ancient suburban landscape was here characterised by local limestone quarry activities and funerary monuments, the research on which has given significant new data. The Late Antique and medieval periods, with their conjunctures of growth and contraction, as well as the Karamanli/ Ottoman phase have been analysed for their agricultural peculiarities and forms of settlement. The Late Antique and medieval defensive system (gsur, the Ras el-Hammam and Ras el-Mergheb castles) and the Ottoman religious landscape (marabouts or 'shrines', today almost completely demolished) have also been taken into consideration.
Since 1995 the Archaeological Mission to Libya of Roma Tre University has carried out several surveys in the territory and suburbs of Lepcis Magna. Besides the survey of the archaeological and historical sites, the Roma Tre team has also had the opportunity to observe and record the development of the landscape through periods of war and peace.In this article, the issues related to the cultural heritage in the area of the modern city of Khoms and in the Lepcis hinterland are analysed and particular consideration is given to the damage and destruction that has occurred since the Italian occupation (1911) until the present day. The Lepcitanian/Khoms territory is an interesting case study in which the cultural heritage has been, and still is, at risk due to ‘civilian’ and ‘conflict’ causes. Besides the damage that occurred during the Italo-Turkish War and – to a minor extent – during WWII, the main damage seems to have occurred in the last sixty years due to the expansion of Khoms and to the ongoing unstable political situation in which the lack of central government control is playing an important role. In particular, since 2011, Islamic fundamentalists have demolished in these areas several ancient marabouts, destroying one of the most characteristic aspects of the Tripolitanian/Libyan cultural landscape.
This contribution offers a new reading of the ancient landscape of the periphery of Lepcis Magna thanks mainly to the data from the survey campaigns carried out by the Archaeological Mission of Roma Tre University (2007–13) together with new archival research and GIS analysis. The new data are related to the road network of the Lepcitanian territory and its inner suburban areas. They include both the already known routes (essentially the coastal via publica and the via in mediterraneum) and new roads here presented merging the new information with the already published archaeological evidence. Beside the road network, a new topographic reading of the south-east suburb shows also traces of an ancient land partition based on Roman measurements. This latter discovery would represent, up to now, the first evidence of a cadastrian land partition in Tripolitania.
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