THE CYRENEAN MUSEUM

The museum is located in the beautiful fir forest at the exit of Shahat. Apart from beautiful mosaics mainly from Jason Magnus's house (th century), the only museum room is dedicated to the statuary of the Cyrene site, with Arabic, English and Italian records. At the entrance, the statue and engraving of the goddess Cyrene strangling un a lion are reproductions, the originals in the British Museum.

By entering, we are struck by the magnificent Greek statue of a sphinge, with his bust of women, her lion body and her bird wings (life B.C.). We will note in particular: the head of Gorgonian (th century BC) which transcended the temple of Apollo and then served as a decoration to a Roman fountain; several busts with or without a face uncovered in Necropolises necropolises; statues discovered in the Thermes baths, including the magnificent statue of the Group of Three Graces; the small statue of Isis with a diadem and wrapped in a red coat (from the Isis temple); the three-head bust of the goddess Hecate; four of the nine Muses, including Clio muse, intact; in windows, the head of the god Zeus and the toes of the giant statue of Zeus of the temple of Zeus. Among the bas-reliefs, one will notice that of a quadriga (th century BC), which recalls that if Cyrene was famous for his sylphium, she was also for her horses renowned for their speed and their cold-blooded to war.

By leaving the museum, you can go to a few meters from there (leave the museum on your right) the remains of a Byzantine church where vegetation takes over its rights, behind a grid.

The temple of Zeus, comparable to the temple of Zeus d'Olympia, is the largest Greek temple in Africa. In Doric style, this vast temple of 70 m in 19 obeys a very classical plan. It was built in the early th century BC outside the city's loudspeakers and restored under Emperor Hadrian after the revolt of the Jews in 115-117. It had 8 high columns of 9 m on each facade and 17 on each side. At the bottom of his main hall was a statue of Zeus. It was replaced under Hadrian by a gigantic statue, imitation of the statue of Zeus of the Olympia Temple. This temple, whose ruins were relatively well preserved, was fully recorded by Italian archaeologists in the 1950 s.