Ptolemais

Ptolemais was one of the five cities of the Cyrenaican Pentapolis and served as a port for Barca inland, laid out on a grid with a street plan still traceable across the site. The Palace of the Columns, a large private house with a peristyle and mosaics, is the best known building, and beneath the forum runs a system of cisterns cut into the rock on a scale that shows what water meant here. A museum holds sculpture and mosaic from the site.

History

The city was founded by, and named after, a Ptolemaic ruler, probably Ptolemy III Euergetes, who reigned from 246 to 221 BC; he turned a small Greek settlement of the late 7th century BC, the port of Barca 24 km inland, into a city of 280 hectares. It became Roman in 96 BC, and under Diocletian it was the capital of the province of Libya Superior (Wikipedia, Ptolemais, Cyrenaica).

The main sights

• The Palace of the Columns - the large peristyle house with its mosaics.
• The cisterns - the rock-cut water system beneath the forum.
• The street grid - the Hellenistic plan still traceable across the site.
• The site museum - sculpture and mosaic recovered from the excavations.

When to go

March to May and October to November are the comfortable months. Summer is hot on the coast. Winter brings rain.

Things to know

Much of the site is unexcavated and what is exposed is deteriorating. The museum's opening is unreliable. Travel in Libya requires arrangements through a licensed operator.

Nearby

Tocra is west, and Cyrene is east.

Key facts