The spectacular ruins of the ancient Greek city Cyrene survived Libya’s bloody revolution intact, but the uprising has killed off tourism in a country that only recently opened up to outsiders.
Three cows wandering about the agora were the only visitors to the breathtaking site on a hilltop where much still remains of a city founded in the 7th century BC and was once known as the ‘Athens of Africa’.
Last year, 10,000 tourists from countries such as Japan, Germany or Britain came to visit Cyrene, but none have appeared since February when Libyans began their bid to topple Muammar Gaddafi, said tour guide Mohamed Bucharit.
Bucharit wandered through the UN World Heritage site overlooking the Mediterranean, pointing out the statues of Hercules and Hermes, the running track, the amphitheatre and the Bacchus temple.
“We were very lucky that nothing was damaged. They (Gaddafi’s forces) didn’t use tanks here, only guns,” he said, describing the fighting in the town of Shahat, whose suburbs reach the edge of Cyrene.
The uprising has put the Libyan tourism industry on hold.
Decades of isolation came to an end in 2003 when Gaddafi told the world he was abandoning his nuclear ambitions and the authorities started issuing tourist visas.
Europeans, Americans and Asians started coming in ever greater numbers to see the vast expanses of the Sahara desert, the forbidding mountain ranges, and the remains of ancient civilisations.
As the Lonely Planet guide book’s 2007 edition put it: “Libya has it all.”
The west of the country, which is still controlled by Gaddafi, boasts two fine Roman cities, Leptis Magna and Sabratha, while sites in the rebel-held east retain countless vestiges of the Greek world.
The east, still called by its Greek name Cyrenaica, hosts World War II sites like Tobruk and is Libya’s greenest corner, home to the Green Mountains, or Jebel al-Akhdar, which resemble southern Europe more than the desert terrain characteristic of most of Libya.
But all these tourist treasures are currently without visitors as the rebels, with the backing of massive Nato air power, move into the third month of their campaign to oust Gaddafi.