Protecting The Past 3: Documentation As A Tool For Heritage Protection

Vincent Michel (Universite de Poitiers) gives a talk for the second panel of the second day of the conference. Six years after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, what assessment can we make of the situation of the cultural heritage in Libya? This country is full of archaeological treasures as well in the south, in the heart of the Akakous desert, in the East in Cyrenaica and in the west in Tripolitania. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, mingling with a Libyan population, have continually left their mark, modifying both the urban and rural landscape! Libya is this famous country of North Africa but whose archaeological heritage has remained almost unknown on the contrary! This international ignorance and this local ignorance have favored the preservation of this rich Libyan heritage. What was the impact of the 2011 revolution on heritage? The finding is positive compared to the situation in Iraq or Syria; the sites have been preserved and museum collections hermetically saved. Nevertheless, this situat