Ghirza, oh, Ghirza

One of the reasons I agreed to go to Libya was that the country has some of the best Roman ruins in the world. Some of these, such as Leptis Magna and Sabratha, are situated on the coast and have always attracted European visitors. However, there are many smaller but interesting sites further inland, in what is now desert but was more fertile land in the Roman period. These ruins are little known and very difficult to reach.

During my first three years in Tripoli, I spent a lot of time trying to find out how to reach a place called Ghirza, a late Roman settlement deep in the desert south of Tripoli. It didn't appear on any of our maps and nobody I asked - and I asked everyone I ever met - had ever heard of it. So by 1977 I had pretty much given up all hopes of seeing what had become, in my mind, almost a mythical site. Then one evening Idris walked into my office.

Idris was one of our students and he had come to tell me that his father knew how to get to Ghirza and was willing to guide us there.

The following weekend we packed our Nissan Patrol with supplies and camping gear and drove to Tarhuna, where Idris' parents lived. His father seemed a bit old and doddery but he was confident that he could get us to Ghirza. So we settled him in the front passenger seat and off we went.

It was a rough journey over almost invisible tracks through the worst type of stone desert. Before we had gone halfway, I was certain that even the heavily-reinforced suspension on our vehicle wasn't going to survive the trip. What made it worse was that Idris' dad wanted to get there fast: Every time I slowed down even a fraction, he would glare at me, slap the dashboard and say "Straight ahead" ("Alatool").

Four hours later we ran into a sandstorm so intense that we literally couldn't see the front of the truck. All we could do was stop and wait for it to pass. And luckily it did. After fifteen minutes the sand stopped blowing around, the air cleared and there, just ahead of us, were the ruins of Ghirza. And what ruins! The fortified farmhouses were in a poor state of repair but the obelisks and mausolea in the nearby Roman cemetery were in excellent condition.

Some of the Ghirza Mausolea

For the next thirty minutes I was in heaven, walking around taking photos and trying to decide which buildings I would examine most closely the following day.

A Farming Scene on One of the Mausolea

Of course, it wasn't to be. Idris came up to me, rather shame-faced, and told me his father had decided he wanted to sleep in his own bed that night after all. I pointed out to Idris Sr that, as he well knew, the first rule of desert driving is never to travel at night. It was no use. He was adamant. So we had a quick snack, piled into the truck, and started back for Tarhuna just as night fell.

Roman Soldiers Chop up a Captive

What a journey! The track was so rough that our headlights spent as much time shining up into the sky as they did illuminating the track. But, after six and half hours of bouncing over stones and boulders, we reached the old man's house.

As we were enjoying a very late supper prepared by Idris' mum, I mentioned to Idris Sr that he hadn't always seemed totally certain of the way to Ghirza. With his son translating, he admitted that finding the route had been more difficult than he expected. One problem, he confided, was that he'd only ever been there before on horseback and that the perspective was very different in a fast-travelling truck. The other problem was that his last visit had been when he was a freedom fighter waging a guerilla war against the Italians. The war against the Italians ended in 1934!

P.S.
The other day I was browsing Internet sites about Libya and I discovered that you can now take guided tours to Ghirza in air-conditioned vehicles. Is nowhere safe from progress?