Ancient Libyan necropolis threatened by real estate speculators.

Local residents recently destroyed part of the Cyrene necropolis, an ancient Greek city in north-eastern Libya, to make way for houses and shops. Our Observer, an archeology professor, laments the authorities’ unwillingness to act to prevent the destruction of this invaluable archaological heritage. Cyrene dates back to about 700 B.C. and was the oldest and largest Greek colony in eastern Libya, a region now known as Cyrenaica. Of the city’s former glory remains an enormous necropolis — nearly 10 square kilometers in size — used between 600 and 400 B.C. The necropolis includes 1,200 burial vaults dug into the bedrock and thousands of individual sarcophagi that lie on the ground. Even though the city is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, local farmers have laid claim to certain parts of the necropolis and recently destroyed a section with the help of excavators in order to make way for new houses. Read more.

and US archeologists want to repatriate stuff to these Ay-rab Islamist hooligans that don't know how to look after it. They need to think again.