Libya, a country in North Africa with vast arid regions, faces a serious water crisis. With less than 7.5 mm of rainfall each year and evaporation rates over 3,000 mm, water scarcity is a constant challenge. The country relies heavily on fossil groundwater – non-renewable underground reserves – leading to the depletion of aquifers and making water increasingly scarce. As a result, Libya has some of the lowest per-person freshwater availability in the world, with less than 200 cubic metres annually. Population growth, expanding cities and industrial development put further pressure on limited water resources, while overuse, pollution and environmental degradation worsen the situation. Projects like the Man-Made River, which transports water from the south to the north, aim to help but have not fully solved the problem. To secure water for the future, Libya needs a comprehensive, sustainable strategy based on principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). This approach involves carefully planning and managing water, land and related resources in a way that considers social, economic and environmental factors. Such efforts can improve efficiency, reduce waste and pollution and boost resilience against climate change. Addressing water scarcity also requires adopting sustainable practices such as collecting rainwater, treating and reusing wastewater, desalinating seawater and promoting water- efficient technologies. Combining these strategies with infrastructure improvements can help make the most of Libya’s water resources, protect the environment, improve people’s lives and utilize concepts like virtual water and water footprinting to bridge gaps and foster better water management. A holistic, sustainable approach rooted in IWRM principles is essential for tackling the root causes of Libya’s water crisis and building a secure water future.

Scholars have been sharply divided over the legal status of temple cult in the fourth century. This is due to a large body of evidence that appears in some ways to be contradictory. However, insufficient attention has been paid to Libanius’ claim (Or. 30.33–6) that the civic cults of Rome and Alexandria were exempt from the bans that were in effect elsewhere. The hypothesis derived from this testimony is capable of explaining all of the evidence, resolving the apparent contradictions. To simplify the matter somewhat, all aspects of temple cult were legal in Rome and Alexandria until 391, but, except for the period from late 361–c. 366/372, the central ritual of public sacrifice (at a minimum) had been illegal in the rest of the Empire since the latter years of Constantine’s reign.

In this paper the Latinate gentilicia Flavius and Iulius, as well as the rank tribunus with its Punic equivalent, found in the Latino-Punic sub-corpus from the necropolis at Bir ed-Dreder are discussed. The texts date roughly to the mid fourth century AD, and attest to the continued survival of Punic in the Tripolitanian pre-desert, also in an official Roman context. While the inscriptions are difficult to understand, direct Latin influence is limited to these three nouns related to their service in the Roman army. The Roman military rank tribunus could, however, also be rendered in Punic. By all accounts, knowledge of Latin was still at best limited in this region during early Late Antiquity.

Contemporary historiography of philosophy addresses the philosophy produced in Greek after the Fall of Constantinople and until the Modern Greek Enlightenment through two frameworks: that of post-Byzantine philosophy and that of Corydallism, preceded by a ‘pre-Corydallic’ and followed by a ‘post-Corydallic’ period. Despite their differences, both frameworks posit a continuity of this philosophy with Byzantine philosophy. I argue that the structure and contents of the treatises and handbooks of logic produced in the Heptanese and in Ottoman Greece during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries can by no means be accounted for with reference to Byzantine philosophy.

A cast copper-alloy male figurine with a circular socket projecting from its head was discovered by a metal-detectorist in West Keal, Lincolnshire, and recorded via the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) before inclusion in Britannia’s 2020 roundup. Conservation by the finder revealed further decorative details, particularly on the tunic. This contribution examines these embellishments, their stylistic affinities and implications for dating. The identification of the figure as a servant opens discussion on the luxurious domestic settings of Roman Lincolnshire and high-status sites.

The rooster-headed man in a mosaic at Brading Roman Villa on the Isle of Wight is a mystery that has attracted a dizzying range of explanations since its discovery in 1879. Three broad theories have found favour — that he represents a deity, an exotic beast to be hunted, or a hunter either with a rooster-related name or mocking the emperor Constantius Gallus. In this article I outline the problems with these theories before offering an alternative explanation — that this figure is a damnatus, and the scene an imaginative execution, a so-called ‘fatal charade’. This suggestion both facilitates a more holistic interpretation of the mosaic, and rehabilitates earlier suggestions long summarily dismissed.

This paper examines what Seneca, Controuersiae 9.2 can contribute to understanding of the maiestas laws under Augustus and Tiberius. In this period, two distinct judicial spaces are known to have hosted cases tried under these laws: the traditional Republican standing court and the new senatorial court, which supplanted its predecessor at the latest from the years immediately following the accession of Tiberius. Yet in the same period a third judicial space acquired new prominence: the schoolrooms of the declaimers, in which teachers of rhetoric, their pupils and sundry adult performers gathered to participate in the fictional trial fοr maiestas laesa of L. Quinctius Flamininus. Moving between these spaces and considering the interrelationship of the different statutes that they employed, this paper shows how the superficially escapist practice of trying Flamininus could also offer a vehicle for reflection on the drastic legal and political changes taking place in the world outside. Building on close analysis of the contribution of Votienus Montanus, the paper seeks to reconstruct key provisions of the hypothetical late Augustan lex Iulia maiestatis. It finally details how many of those quoted in the exercise risked or actually underwent prosecution for maiestas or themselves launched such prosecutions.

This paper presents an analysis of the decapitated head found in 2020 under the collapsed wall of the Cantabrian oppidum of La Loma. This settlement was besieged and destroyed by the Roman Army during the Cantabrian Wars (29–16 BCE), either towards the end of the military campaign directed by Octavius   Augustus (26 BC) himself, or during the subsequent campaign, commanded by Gaius Antistius Vetus (26–24 BCE). Radiocarbon dating, taphonomical and anthropological analysis, and DNA analysis assign the skull to one of the defenders of the hillfort. This man’s head would have been exposed on the walls as a symbol of victory before they were razed to prevent reoccupation of the settlement.

Between 2023 and 2024, the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project, in collaboration with the Libyan Department of Antiquities (DoA), organised and conducted a series of training workshops and fieldwork campaigns in Libya, funded by the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund (CPF). The workshops provided training to over 20 members of the DoA in a newly-developed Machine Learning Automated Change Detection (MLACD) tool. This remote sensing method was developed by the Leicester EAMENA team to detect landscape change and aid heritage monitoring efforts. The MLACD method was applied to four case studies in Libya: Lefakat (Cyrenaica), Bani Walid (Tripolitania), the region south of Derna (Cyrenaica) and Jarma (Fazzan). Each of these case studies was followed by a survey campaign by Libyan archaeologists to validate the results of the method, survey the archaeological sites identified, record their condition and assess the disturbances and threats affecting them. This article will provide an overview of the aims and successful outcomes of the EAMENA-CPF training programme, as well as an introduction to the MLACD method and its application to Libyan heritage, providing background and context for the individual case studies, which will be published more fully in separate articles.