[3] Earliest traces of Cyrene date back to about 700 BC, it is considered to be the oldest and largest Greek colony in eastern Libya.

In 2013 the local archaeology professor Ahmed Hussein from Bayda University noted:[2]"This ancient necropolis is one of the most important in the world.

"James Hamilton described the Necropolis of Cyrene in his visit 1856:[5] "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.

"The northern face of the eastern hill seems to have been the first place used for sepulture; and, judging from the style, I should think that some monuments, about half a mile from the fountain, on the road to Apollonia, are among the earliest.

I am inclined to think that the sepulchres, which are entirely excavated, without any adjuncts of masonry, are of two epochs, the earliest and latest, the former, though generally rude, impressive in their monolithic vastness; the latter, in their meretriciously minute though graceful decorations, reminding me forcibly of Pompeii.

There are two wrestlers, with a third figure, who seems to be taking a flying leap over their heads, but who may be intended to be lying on the ground overcome, while the judge, with the prize-cup, or, perhaps, the oil for anointing, looks on in the comer.

[1] Rowe was the first to make an extensive archaeological study of the Necropolis of Cyrene, however, many artifacts from his excavations, and from Oliverio in 1925, are today considered to be lost.