Colors of Libya

The Lady of 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.