A Cry for Freedom
18/11/2009 at 23:20 | In General | Leave a CommentTags: Birds and Freedom
A couple of years ago, I was driving with my daughter to Tauchera and Al Marej area just to wonder in the countryside and take some pictures. I was driving on the coastal road when, looking in the back mirror, I noticed something lying in the middle of the road that looked vaguely like a small animal or a bird. I stopped and drove in reverse until I arrived where it was. Eventually, it was a bird, a migrating one I guessed, hit by a car in its wing and it couldn’t fly anymore. My daughter wanted to take it home and try to treat it until it gets well, so we put it in the car and drove on.
And so that’s how it came to our house where my daughter put it in a spare cage and provided it with food and water and tried to ease its wound by spilling water to it.
She kept doing so for few days until she thought it got better and became in a good shape to fly. However, whenever approached it became very violent and tried to fly out hitting the roof and sides of the cage. It wasn’t tame neither thankful at all!
One week later, we took the cage and drove outside of town to the farms area near the airport of Benina where we stopped at a friend’s farm and put the cage on the ground and opened the door and there it was!! It just jumped out of the cage; it made such a piercing joyous cry (at home it never made a sound) and flew away like a bullet toward the trees!!!
I looked at some books and found out that that bird could be what we call in Arabic Gunbraقنبرة . It is a migrating bird that comes from the north to the African coast in Autumn looking for the warm climate in Winter time and it only makes a singing sound very rarely and only to express joy.
COULD THAT HAVE BEEN A CRY FOR FREEDOM?
BEFORE
AFTER
The Lady of Silphium
04/11/2009 at 22:16 | In Books | Leave a CommentTags: Cyrene, Greek cyrenaica, Silphium
Christina Söderling-Brydolf from Sweden, drove her Landrover accompanied with her daughter Caterina, into Libya for the first time in 1968. Both of Christina and her daughter enjoyed sightseeing around in the Jabal Lakhdar of Cyrenaica, and visited the Pentapolis. Christina read about the founding of Cyrene by the Greek settlers of Thera under their leader Battus, to become later, first king of his line of eight kings ruled Cyrene for 200 years. She knew then, of how the famous plant Silphium, provided the economic basis for the development of Cyrene which flourished into a state of great prosperity and a high cultural level. The Cyrenaic coins from 600 to 250 B.C. bearing the images of Silphium are a testimony of its importance.
Silphium of which Roman poet Catullus sang:
near Cyrene, where Silphium is gathered,
between the shrine of Jupiter the sultry
& the venerable sepulchre of Battus!
… was a medicinal plant curing many diseases and considered as an Elixir of Life which cost its weight of gold in the civilized world then. The plant was collected by Libyans and its exportation to Egypt and Europe was the monopoly of kings of Cyrene.
Christina left Libya later and back in Cairo she discussed the subject of the plant with her Swedish friend, the Botanic Professor in Cairo University, Vivi Tackholm. Gradually, she became obsessed with the idea of going back to Libya and undertaking a project of searching for any trace of this plant which was extinct centuries ago. She met Lully Bjorkenheim, a Finish Lady, in Cairo who volunteered to accompany her in her odessy whenever she wanted to.They met each other later on, in Stockholm, in February the following year and studied all the information available on Libya, its ancient and modern history and what the ancients left of lore on the plant Silphium which the Romans called lasarpicium. On 23rd February, 1969, they drove from Stockholm towards the South, and from Naples they sailed by boat to Benghazi. I have to remind you that Christina was in her late fifties and Lully was in her late sixties at the time. It must have been quite a spectacular view for the inhabitants of Jabal Lakhdar to see those two rather old ladies who were touring the area between Cyrene, Appolonia, Beda, Grenada and Ras El Hilal in their Landrover looking for any trace or relative of this mysterious plant, and collecting what they suspected close to their objective.
They continued making their devout search. They looked up in the hills and down the valleys and the ravines, and near the coast of Cyrenaica, and they naturally didn’t find any Silphium related plant apart of the plant ferula which the Libyans called derias and knew to be poisonous to man and beast. Lully was particually interested in the Greek catacombs and the caves hoping to dig up some burried treasure. They drove around the area between Beda, Slonta, Cyrene, Appolonia, Ras el Hilal and Derna. They became acquainted to the weird –but friendly- Miss Briton who lived in Ras el Hilal village under the protection of the King who was a first customer of her special natural honey product of her fantastic beehives. Miss Briton lived there for fifteen years already, she was very interested in Libyan history, old and present and knew a lot about plants.
At the end, they didn’t find any Silphium, but Christina left us a most beautiful book telling of her adventures in Cyrenaica, telling of Libyan history, past and present, and displaying information about Cyrenaica wild flowering plants. She wrote of her contacts with Libyans, with the Libyan administration and with few foriegners whe they met in Shahat and Soussa. The plant specimens the two ladies ghathered were later sent form Tunis city to Stockholm to be analysed in a Botany Lab. The book is called (Blomman I Cyrene) or, Flora of Cyrene, which is translated into Arabic under the supervision of Dr. Hadi M. Bulghma and published by the University of Gar Younis, Benghazi.
Camels and Total Solar Eclipse
11/10/2009 at 20:06 | In Libya | 2 CommentsTags: 2006, Solar Eclipse
In the last hundred years or so, Libya had seen two events of Total Solar Eclipses. The first one occurred in 1905, and it was recorded by Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd in her beautiful book “Tripoli, the Mysterious”.The Total Solar Eclipse I want to talk about took place on 29th March, 2006. The expected event then, when announced, created quite a stir in the national spirit, full of excitement, expectations and desire to know more about it. Thousands of foreigners were expected to come to Libya, and we heard that all preparations were made to meet them and make their stay in Libya a pleasant event to remember. People were looking for those special glasses to protect their eyes, but they were very difficult to find in Benghazi until the last day before the event. And they were sold at a triple price. Actually, I lost hope to get any and bought instead the highest number-grade available of welding lens. Finally, on the eve of the Awaited Day, my son did bring four pairs, and I obtained six pairs, at the time we were a family of six. So, we had extra pairs to give away!
Then came the preparation and the decision of where to go. The nearest three total line eclipse sites to Benghazi were Jialo جالو camp, Al Burdi البردى camp or Bir Al Ghubi بئر الغبى camp. The first was west and then south of Benghazi about 360 km. The second was east till Tobruk and then south on the road to Al Jaghbub الجغبوب about 550 km. The third is east near the Egyptian frontier about 600 km. I understood that because of certain security measures it would have been more complicated to travel to Jialo camp. So I thought of the other alternative Total Eclipse Time line points available and nearest to Benghazi. We decided of a plan to drive to one of them but to leave the final decision until we arrive in Tobruk طبرق .
I cleared myself to be free from work on that day, and it was almost a free day for everybody. We made preparations of food and other provisions for one day. A colleague and a very close friend of my son asked to come with us, so that made seven of us and we decided to go in two cars, I would drive one, and my son would drive the second.
We were to leave Benghazi at 05:00 Hours in the morning, and drive to Al Marej, then turn east towards Takeness تاكنس and hit the low hills road that would lead us away from the high Green Mountain towards Martouba, at the coast east of Derna درنة town, and then continue the coastal road to Tobruk.
We stopped only once for breakfast at Al Tamimi التميمى and then we arrived in Tobruk before 1200 Hours. We found the weather was just perfect and there were no clouds in the sky so we voted for continuing driving on the coast towards the Egyptian borders instead of turning towards the desert. We continued driving until we crossed Kamput كمبوت , now we were within the three-minute total line eclipse but still some 50 km from the borders. There was absolutely no movement on the road, no cars and no people, and we arrived to some sort of green field on our right where there were some camels grazing peacefully. We stopped and had a vote. All voted and agreed to remain near the camels and watch the effects of the eclipse on them. We left the road and drove some dirt track to our right until we were as close as could be to the camels without disturbing them.
It was 1230 Hours, only 10 minutes to the beginning of the eclipse. We made our picnic site, we prepared our protective eye sight glasses, we got our digital cameras out, we got our video cam ready, we watched the camels and waited.
When I try to recollect my impressions and my reaction of those precious moments, and also of those around me, probably I may not succeed and words would fail me. At the approach of the hour, the camels started gradually to stop walking around, and remained in fixed points as it was the approach of the end of the day, or as if they were waiting for something to happen. On the western horizon, we could see a sort of slight gray color darkening the sky as there was a silent tempest approaching, a tempest without sound you could hear. Later on, some of the camels actually started to sit down until there was a total quietness and some dimness in the air and all camels were sitting down which is another way of saying ‘lying down’. When we looked with our eye glasses we saw that the eclipse actually had already started and progressing, though you can’t notice it by the naked eye. We made other ways to follow it up by making a hole through a piece of paper or water in a pan, and of course we used our eye protective glasses.
Now the dimness was approaching like the prelude of a really silent tempest from the west, the air was becoming slightly cooler, until we actually started seeing the shivering of the air as small ghosts traveling around us, and it was very weird. We tried to photograph them, but probably that needed a special camera.
When the total eclipse time arrived, and we were in a plus three minutes line, it was just unbelievable to describe the event with all due respect it deserved.
There was a feeling of awe, of an unbelievable awe, of being out of time and space, like looking at something too awesome that you’re not supposed to look at, a feeling of happiness and sorrow at the same time, that you won’t experience the same event again in your lifetime. You could almost feel that you were part of the universe, but you were too little and insignificant and you were subdued and humbled and lost. It was too great, and your were just a tiny insect crawling on a piece of rock in the stream of eternity. The Greatness of the One Creator is too much for Man to behold!
Only the instinct of survival and the fear of the damage to our eyes, for we were looking at this event without the glasses then, brought us back to the rational world and before the Total Eclipse ended with few seconds we forced ourselves to look the other way and thank God that we were given this privilege to see just a tiny manifestation of his Absolute Greatness.
Then the light of the sun was flooded back. It seemed quicker than when it disappeared and the camels rose slowly one by one for another new day and started grazing around.
Like the camels, we just had our lunch quietly, peacefully and very happy to be there We were much awed, and in loss of appropriate words.
One hour later, we were back in the actual world again and we had to think about those 500 km to drive back to Benghazi. We drove back towards Tobruk and stopped few km’s west of the town where my son’s friend, who was originally from the region, guided us to a spot of a beautiful valley that joined the sea, it was a spectacular view. We had our green tea drink there, then we started our long road back to Benghazi after spending a most memorable day.
Aerial Abodes
04/10/2009 at 20:30 | In Cyrenaica | Leave a CommentTags: Cave Dewellers
Every wonderer visits Jabal Lakhdar remarks the hanging caves he sees on the sides of cliffs and ravines. Some of those caves have pieces of wood –tree trunks- sticking out of them. What’s the story of these caves?In 1821, the brothers F.W. and H.W. Beechey, British explorers made an expedition to explore the Northern Coast of Africa from Tripoli eastward. When they arrived in Jabal Lakhdar region and in one of the valleys near Soussa (ex-Appollonia) they reported the existence of families living in caves above the ground, hanged caves or what they called Aerial Abodes. They reported also that there where people living in tents near Ras el Hilal area.
Great thanks to Dawood Hallag, of Shahat Archeology Department, who, with a group of six brave men of Jabal Lakhdar, attempted a survey expedition in three years between 1985 through 1987 of an area estimated by 5000 km2 to discover those Aerial Abodes or what he called hanged caves – or in Arabic as (أوشاز الأسلاف ) in the Green Mountain. He then wrote a book with the same title published in 1988.
Historical Background:
But why people of the mountain lived in those Aerial Abodes?
D. Hallag in his book stated that according to history there was a period of five centuries starting from middle thirteenth century to middle nineteenth century, there passed an era in Cyrenaica characterized by the following:
1- Cyrenaica was very backward socially and politically and the only authority that existed was a very weak tribal rule.
2- Cyrenaica was underdeveloped economically depending mainly on animal raising, a very primitive kind of agriculture and raiding and theft.
3- Wild spread famines, pests and plagues and natural disasters such as earthquakes.
Andalusi diplomat, geographer and adventurer Al Hassan Mohamed al Wazzan( الحسن بن محمد الوزان ), Also known as Leo Africanus wrote in the sixteenth century describing Cyrenaica as:
“Desert of Barga is about 1300 mile long and 200 mile wide…The life of its inhabitants is very miserable as it is isolated from populated areas. No cereals grow in their land and all their needs are imported from Cicely.”
The Arab Explorer, Al Ayashi (العياشى) wrote about the same era:
” Because of the nonexistence of rulers, anarchy and unrest of people, the land of Barga which is a distance of two months between Alexandria and Africa, became empty of peoples and lawless lands. ”
How People lived in Aerial Abodes?
D. Hallag wrote that people managed to live in high caves in vertical ravines and made them suitable for living, fortified against attacks, safe, secure and habitable. Between 1445 and 1545, which was the peak of living in high caves, a whole society developed according to necessity and adaptation. He found traces and findings of how people managed to live as in regard to:
- Safety of children.
- Reaching the caves by ropes.
- Collecting rain water for drinking and hygiene.
- Arms and self-defense.
- Managing honey hives.
- Women rule in the family.
- Art, singing and Ghinawi al Alam.
- Kitchen and heating and making pottery.
- Medicine and use of mountain plants.
- Relations between cave dwellers and storage records made of rocks.
- Food preservation.
- Making clothes and shoes.
—- and other aspects of life in this environment.
D. Hallag with his team locoted in this expedition more than 100 caves, including the shrines of early Christians in the green mountain in Wadi Marcus (وادى مرقص ) and Wadi el Enjeel (وادى الانجيل ), which were used as a safe refuge during the first century.
Unfortunately and to my knowledge this research was not continued by any other official party.
Qasr Libya
25/09/2009 at 07:00 | In Cyrenaica | 1 CommentTags: Greek Ruins, Mosaics, Qasr Libya
Qasr Libya (Arabic: قصر ليبيا) is a small town in northern Libya about 100 miles northeast of Benghazi. In ancient times, it was called Olbia and Theodorias, the ruins of which were excavated in the 1950s. The town contains a museum with fifty Byzantine mosaics. It’s on the cross-roads between the Marj-Al Bayda main road, and the Qasr Libya-Marawah road.
La Libye en Cartes Postales
24/09/2009 at 19:00 | In Libya | 2 CommentsTags: Benghazi, Old Pictures, Tripoli
“ La Libye a travers les cartes postales “ is a book compiled and researched by Andre Laronde, a French historian and archaeologist specialized in Libyan ancient history. The book contains many pictures that present Libya in the first half of twentieth century from 1900 to 1940. From Libya of the Ottomans to the arrival of the Italians and the discovery of the hinterland. Pictures of the rebirth of Tripoli and Benghazi cities in modern times, and pictures of their near past. It is a very beautiful book published in 1997 in Tunis, and can be obtained through the internet.
Old Tripoli Sea Front
Jebel Neffussa
Zletin
Story of a Road
23/09/2009 at 20:40 | In Libya | Leave a CommentTags: Coastal Road, Italian Area
The sections of the road to be constructed were in pre-desert and desert areas totaling 813 kms and this big job was completed in one year by Libyan hands in 4,510,000 man working days. The works included movement of great number of materials, breaking down millions of metric tons of rocks by hands and pouring down millions of metric tons of bitumen. When the works finished in one year, the coastal road between Tunisia and Egypt of 1822 kms was connected for the first time in history of the land.
The road ” La strada litoranea della Libia ” , which was called Via Balbo at the Italian era, was opened by Moussoline in 1936 when he used it from his point of arrival to the colony in Tobruk to the west in Tripoli.
This road was reconstructed in 1967 after the independence of Libya, but these pictures tell the story of the original road.
Source:
La strada Litoranea Della Libia
Graphic Workshops in Verona
Wadi Jarjarummah
21/09/2009 at 18:15 | In Cyrenaica | Leave a CommentTags: Libyan Beaches, Wadi Jarjarummah
Pictures of an older Benghazi
15/09/2009 at 16:19 | In Benghazi | 2 CommentsTags: Old Pictures
Cafe Place near Soug Jerid
Benghazi Tree Square
The Temple at Slontah
10/09/2009 at 19:26 | In Cyrenaica | Leave a CommentTags: Ancient Ruins, Slontah Temple
“A small boy unlocks a metal door in a breezeblock wall, revealing a semicircular space bordered by low limestone ledges. A round base, 120cm (almost 4ft) in diameter, indicates the temple was once inside a cave, the roof supported by a pillar. The ledges are carved with faces and teeming figures of humans and animals (pig, lion, sheep, horse, deer, dog, etc.). Those on the left are much eroded and difficult to interpret, although one group of figures appear to be in an erotic embrace. Behind the pillar base is a giant horizontal snake accompanied by figures carrying baskets and a crocodile devouring a calf; along to the right is a row of five heads peering from beneath a ledge. On the furthest right is a group of figures – maybe four adults and two children – adjoining another group with a large head and a female figure in a long robe.” Unquote.
The place must be of tremendous historical value, though it is left in a very bad shape, and eventually, the forces of nature will finally succeed in destroying whatever left of its remains. Who were those people who left us these remains? What were their beliefs and how they lived? What period of history they lived in? Were they one of the ancient Libyan tribes that lived while the Pharos ruled in ancient Egypt? Many questions that have no answers.
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