Coastal and archaeological sites of Libya: Apollonia protection project - Apollonia Historical and Geographycal Aspects

Libyc territory preserves again wide archaeological treasures of these millenarian stratifications of civilization – Roman and Greek period in particular – with stately urban settlements, destroyed long centuries and buried under sand piles. The ancient buried cities as Sabratha, Leptis Magna, Euesperide, Tocra, Tolemaide, Apollonia and Cyrene (the so called “ Athen of Africa”), represent one of the most important and big archaeological layer of the mediterranean basin. The Apollonia area belongs to a wide coasting plateau, extended in WE direction, which represents the most highest point of Cyrenaica region. Actually for the problems due to the sinking of the ground and the sea rise level showed above, the coastal area of Apollonia has the real necessity to be protected to stabilize the zone to avoid that the sea puts in danger the historical area. We propose to define a two-sided technical group – that involves, of course, by italian and libyan governative people – that can work starting from this draft, on writing a detailed technical report, aimed to protect the libyan coastline and its important archaeological heritage.