Necropolis of Cyrene
Location ancient port of Apollonia
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 Shown within Libya
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| Location | Libya |
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| Region | Jabal al Akhdar |
| Coordinates | 32°54′00″N 21°58′00″E / 32.9°N 21.966667°E |
The Necropolis of Cyrene is a necropolis, about 10 square kilometres sized, and located between Cyrene, Libya and the ancient port of Apollonia at the western slope of the Wadi Haleg Shaloof hill, with terraced archaic tombs, near the ancient road to Appolonia. The necropolis is today partially lost, parts were bulldozed in 2013. The UNESCO classified the site in 1982 as a World Heritage, and added Cyrene in 2017 to its List of World Heritage in Danger.
Earliest traces of Cyrene date back to about 700 BC, it is considered to be the oldest and largest Greek colony in eastern Libya. It is believed that the ancient, now extinct plant Silphium only grew in the Cyrene region.
In 2013 the local archaeology professor Ahmed Hussein from Bayda University noted:
"This ancient necropolis is one of the most important in the world. Its burial vaults and sarcophagi were built in about 600 B.C. These tombs are spread out on each side of a road that leads to the centre of the ancient city of Cyrene. The site was damaged along about two kilometres. About 200 vaults and tombs were destroyed, as well as a section of a viaduct that dates back to approximately 200 A.D. Ancient artefacts were thrown into a nearby river as if they were mere rubbish."
James Hamilton described the Necropolis of Cyrene in his visit 1856:
"Some feelings of melancholy must be awakened in every visitor, as he follows those long lines of violated sepulchres, ranged along the sides of the hills, obtruding far into the plain below, and stretching in every direction across the table-land to the south. The simple sarcophagus and proud mausoleum now alike gape tenantless; perpetuating neither the affection of the survivors nor the merits of the dead, they are mute as to their history, their fate, and almost their names. Barbarian hands have disturbed the relics, and rifled the treasures which they once contained; the existence of such treasures must have been the incentive to, and can alone account for the universal violation of the tombs — hatred, if profitless as well as toilsome, is seldom thus unrelenting."
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Wikipedia