Cyrene is a beautiful site situated across the hills of Libya’s Green Mountain.
Cyrene: the temple of the Sun-god Zeus, 6th century BC, rebuilt during the 2nd century AD.
Key Facts About Cyrene:
o Cyrene: Athens of Africa.
o Local names of the city include: Qurina, Qourinah and Shahhat.
o Greeks’ Arrival: 631 BC.
o Cyrene was a Libyan Amazon Queen.
o Prospered through the silphium plant.
o Cyrene was one of the largest cities in Africa in the 4th century BC.
o Temple of Zeus (above picture) was larger than Athens’ Parthenon.
o The rulers of Cyrene include: Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, and Marc Antony.
o A series of turbulent rebellions sent the city in turmoil in the 2nd century AD.
o The city recovered under the patronage of the Libyan Emperor Septimius Severus.
o Cyrene was named Unesco World Heritage Site in 1982.
o One of the top archaeological destination in Libya today.
The Greek Invasion of Cyrene:
The Greek invasions of Crete and Rhodes of the 9th century BC were shortly followed by their invasions of Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya. The city of Cyrene was a Greek colony, built in the seventh century BC (631 BC) upon the oracle advice of Delphi, on one of the best verdant regions of Eastern Libya’s Green Mountain, by immigrants (or refugees according to some sources) from the island of Thera (Santhorini). However, there was also a failed attempt to colonise Tripolitania under the command of Dorieus, the king of Sparta, who reached the River Cinyps (Wadi Caam), just east of Leptis Magna, in 520 BC and founded a city by that name. They were kicked out three years later by the Carthaginians (Berbers & Phoenicians).
The prosperity of Cyrene was founded on the silphium plant, pictured on Cyrenaican coins, where it resembles a stylised leek or a sunflower. The plant once grew only in Libya and apparently its extinction was a grievous blow to the Greeks and to the city’s economy.
Libyan Amazonian Cyrene:
The city is locally known as Qurina: (QRN) > *Qyrne > Cyrne (CRN). But Cyrene was also one of the Libyan Amazon queens who, according to legend, founded a city with that name (Cerne) along the coast. The Greek goddess Ceres, a Hellenic form of African Isis, the Corn-goddess, the goddess of fertility, was also known as Qer, Ger or Cer, and therefore Qurina appears to be the Libyan form of Qer. Whether the city of Qurina was in existence before the Greeks arrived, and whether it was the same as the Amazonian Cerne, we may never know; but the following myth may shed some light on the mystery:
The Greek Version of the Myth of Cyrene:
According to the Greek version of the founding myth, the nymph-huntress Cyrene, whom the Greeks knew as Kurana (cf. Qurina), was spotted by the Sun-god Apollo wrestling with and subsequently strangling a lion in the jungle, and he immediately fell in love with the courageous princess. Typical of most Greek gods Apollo did what Zeus normally does, and so he abducted the beautiful princess, threw her in his golden chariot, and flew to a site that eventually bore her name. To make the region safe for settlers, the followers of the god built the Temple of Apollo, whence probably the port of Apollonia nearby. Like Graves had brilliantly pointed out in his Greek Myths, abductions and rapes point to physical invasions in the real world, and as such Apollo’s abduction of Cyrene could point us to the fact that the Greeks had invaded an already existent city with that name, which we can, with some reserve, identify with the above Amazonian city. The evidence for this could also come from the myth itself: building a temple for Apollo to protect the settlers indicate that the place originally was inhabited by locals whom the settlers needed protection from. Cyrene’s Amazonian connection is also hinted at by the fact that instead of the usual household tasks of weaving and cooking, the nymph Cyrene was strongly passionate about "manly" activities, such as hunting wild beasts; and therefore the fact that Libyan nymph was seen by Apollo wrestling a lion could only point to her being an Amazon princess.
