Forgotten Ancient Structure Uncovered by Devastating Libyan Floods

ARTnews ^ | September 28, 2023 | Tessa Solomon

[SunkenCiv]

Recent floods in Libya have uncovered long-buried archaeological structures in an ancient Greek settlement outside the devastated city of Derna. The magnitude of the catastrophe, however, is impeding preservation efforts.

Local authorities discovered the structure while surveying the damage to Cyrene, a Greek city founded in 631 BCE. Cyrene thrived in the fourth century BCE as a center for agricultural and commercial activity, and holds several ancient landmarks such as a temples dedicated to Zeus and Apollo, respectively.

But Cyrene is now in dire need of aid after an aging dam burst earlier this month near Derna, unleashing a torrent of water across eastern Libya...

The floods near Derna started after the country was hit on September 10 by Storm Daniel, a devastating storm system that also wreaked havoc on Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The storm caused strong winds, flash floods, and set a new rainfall record for Libya, according to the World Meterological Organization.

While damage was extensive in all the affected countries, in Libya, the storm came into contact with two aging dams, built in the 1970s from clay, rocks, and earth. While there have long been warnings about the condition of the dams, dating back to the late ’90s, corruption under the government of Colonel Muammar Al Qaddafi and then political instability since he was toppled in 2011 have prevented the needed maintainence.

“Those dams have had cracks and issues since the last regime, and despite all the budgets and all the demands and the calls, nothing was done,” Nermin Al-Sherif, head of the Libyan General Federation of Trade Unions, told Bloomberg. “Climate change is not something that we just heard about. It’s an existential threat and a lot of mistakes were committed here.”

[SunkenCiv]

(Getty can't be used on FR, so visit the link to see the nice pic)

Water flows through the ruins at the site of the ancient Greco-Roman city of Cyrene (Shahhat) in eastern Libya, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Derna, on September 21,2023, in the aftermath of a devastating flood. The immediate damage to the monuments of Cyrene, which include the second century AD Temple of Zeus, bigger than the Parthenon in Athens, is relatively minor but the water circulating around their foundations threatens future collapses, the head of the French archaeological mission in Libya, Vincent Michel, told AFP. (Photo by Ozan KOSE / AFP) (Photo by OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images)

• New Drone Footage Shows Horrific Aftermath Of Deadly Floods In Derna, Libya. *Video at link. [09/18/2023]
• Up to 10,000 people feared dead after devastating floods sweep Libya [09/12/2023]
• More than 2,000 people feared dead in Libya after ‘catastrophic and unprecedented' flooding [09/11/2023]
• Seedy, not sweet: Ancient melon genome from Libya yields surprising insights into watermelon relative [08/11/2022]
• Ancient Roman Ruins in Libya Hold Great Potential (Leptis Magna) [09/28/2021]
• Italians Discover Hoard Of Roman Statues (Libya) [06/11/2005]

[smokingfrog]

Notice how they like to blame climate change instead of failure to maintain infrastructure.

[SunkenCiv]

The other GGG topics added since the previous digest ping, alpha sort:

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• Earth can regulate its own temperature over millennia, new study finds Scientists have confirmed that a "stabilizing feedback" on 100,000-year timescales keeps global temperatures in check. [09/29/2023]
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• Melting ice near Norway's highest mountain reveals horse bridle that could stem from the Viking Age [09/27/2023]
• New images of 5,000-year-old Highland burial site [09/27/2023]
• New rooms discovered in Sahura's pyramid [09/30/2023]
• New Salem Witch Trials exhibit focuses on victims' stories [09/29/2023]
• New Study Sheds Light on Origins and Domestication of Grapevines [09/28/2023]
• Now Is the Time to Renew History Departments. Tradition-minded historical scholarship is nearing extinction. [09/24/2023]
• Scientists Discover A "Cryptic" New Species in Central Africa [09/26/2023]
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• Why are archaeologists afraid of opening the tomb of China's first emperor? [09/25/2023]

  ---

  :Garbage Topic, not GGG:

• Murdered Cartel Boss 'El Fatal' Buried With Hundreds of Guns to Protect Him 'In The Afterlife' [09/29/2023]

[SunkenCiv]

Looks like they got their DNC talking point memo about it.

[TexasFreeper2009]

This had nothing to do with climate change, this was simply the infrastructure not being maintained.

This sort of thing will continue to happen all over the world where the infrastructure originally built by Europeans colonists eventually fails, because it isn’t being maintained by the locals.

The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money, and eventually the infrastructure build by capitalism will fail after the socialists and communists sieze it.

[SunkenCiv]

Climate change is 100% natural, 100% of the time.

The reasons the maintenance has been neglected are at least twofold.

Years ago, the Ghaddafy regime started using irrigation from so-called fossil water, and had reached the same conclusion about dams in arid areas that has been reached by Morocco, Central Asian ex-SSRs, etc.

The other is, the Libyan civil war.

[NWFree]

Wonderful - more ancient paganism discovered

[SunkenCiv]

Wonderful, another troll comment.

[Texan5]

Those of us with an interest in history appreciate SunkenCiv’s posts-if you are opposed/uninterested in the subject matter, don’t come to the thread-no one forced you to come and criticize. Have a nice day...

[Texan5]

It is a shame that historical sites are destroyed because people don’t realize that things like dams need to be maintained-no climate change problem-just willful neglect-there have always been floods and that is why dams are built in the first place to protect stuff...

[ro_dreaming]

Years ago, the Ghaddafy regime started using irrigation from so-called fossil water, and had reached the same conclusion about dams in arid areas that has been reached by Morocco, Central Asian ex-SSRs, etc.

What conclusion would that be? (Seriously, you don’t say, so I don’t know what you’re saying is the conclusion about dams)

[Verginius Rufus]

What conclusion would that be?

Just one dam thing after another?

[Verginius Rufus]

I suppose we should destroy the Parthenon and the Pantheon because they were built to honor pagan gods.

The people who built these structures didn't know that they were pagans, any more than the people who lived before Noah realized that they were antediluvian.

[Texan5]

I suppose that the poster I responded to would have us ignore the existence of anything of historical/archaeological value that was not a church or a temple built by Christians or Jews-in other words, willful ignorance. The beauty of historical landmarks, structures is not about what the builders believed, but the fact that they built them at all-it is a tribute to the intelligence and talent of humans, in my opinion.

Gobekeli Tepi (sp?) and some other sites are 11,000+ years old-those people obviously practiced some form of “paganism”, but no one is suggesting we should ignore those sites because of that-ridiculous...

[Adder]

Cyrene sounds better than Shat hat..

;]

[SunkenCiv]

Salinity rises in the soils and aquifers. Worse case may be the Aral Sea, but the Aswan High Dam has had a largely negative impact.

[21twelve]

No money in helping out with crappy engineering, construction and maintenance. Climate change however....

[21twelve]

I found the article below that explains what I think SunkinCiv is talking about?:

https://www.futurity.org/salty-water-threatens-morocco%e2%80%99s-oases-farms/

“The flow of imported surface water onto farm fields has caused natural salts in the desert soil and underlying rock strata to dissolve and leach into local groundwater supplies,” says Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “Over time, the buildup of dissolved salt levels has become irreversible.”

And “fossil water” I had to look up as well. It is very old water that is trapped in the underlying strata, and does not receive any more water coming in from above. Well, that is, not until the fields above in the arid lands are irrigated.

I would suppose that the large aquifers in the USA do not have the problem with becoming saline as they are not in such arid environments, and are constantly getting recharged by rainwater. Of course many of those aquifers are being depleted as the well water extracted from them is more than the rain water. Although progress is being made with better farming techniques.

Although the huge switch over to corn to use in fuel has adversely affected the water usage. Corn needs a lot more water than most crops. But hey - less water for food people can eat, and less CO2 for plants to grow - that is probably a win-win for the NWO population control people.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks. Israel managed to avoid it and undo the effects of past practices during the kibbutz era, through what they now call trickle irrigation.

[smokingfrog]

Apparently, some overdue repairs were in progress before the UN, NATO & the Obama administration decided to invade Libya to get rid of Qaddafi. So we invaded Libya to “protect civilians” but ended up killing a bunch of them because the dam repairs never got completed.