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BP Well Threatens Ancient Libyan Sites
Archaeologists fear the damage that oil platform could do to cities dating from the 7th century BC
Plans by the energy giant BP to sink an oil well off the Libyan coast could have disastrous consequences for the region's rich heritage of coastal ancient city sites and shipwrecks - already under threat from oil tankers, coastal erosion and tourist developments - archaeologists from around the world have warned.
The energy company has been under increased scrutiny following the leak from its well in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year which spewed oil for three months in the world's worst maritime spill.
Last week a report into the blowout from BP blamed a "complex and interlinked" series of events, including human errors and mechanical failures, for the explosion that killed 11 engineers and led to the spill.
BP has, however, announced that it intends to go ahead with plans to sink a well - which would be 200m deeper than the one in the Gulf of Mexico - around 125 miles off the coast of Libya. Work is due to begin before the end of the year.
Archaeologists fear that an oil spill in the region could destroy the area's numerous ancient coastal and underwater sites and that thousands of historic shipwrecks could be at additional risk from drilling activity.
These include the ancient harbor town of Apollonia, in Cyrenaica - which dates from the 7th century BC and is five meters below sea level - along with two ancient cities in the region of Tripolitania, both of which are World Heritage Sites.
Claude Sintes, the director of the Museum of Ancient Arles in the south of France and director of the sub-aquatic team of the French archaeological mission to Libya, said that the sites are either on the beaches or underwater close to the shore. Washed-up oil would soak the porous stone and be impossible to clean, he added.
"They are very important sites and they are very fragile," he said. "If there is a problem with oil, like in the US, and it washes on to the shore it's going to be very difficult to clean the remains because the stones are porous. Apollonia is five metres under the water, and is complete with streets and buildings. In Tripolitania there are two important sites, Leptis Magna, a former Roman city, and Sabratha, where there is a theater and mosaics. Some remains are on the beach and, if there was a leak, oil could wash up and certainly cause problems."
Paul Bennett, head of mission for the Society of Libyan Studies, which oversees British archaeological expeditions to the country, agreed that an oil spill would be disastrous for the coastal sites.
He added, however, that the area contains tens of thousands of wrecks from the Roman period, and that an opportunity to map the seabed using data collected by BP and other oil companies is being lost - along with the opportunity to ensure the wrecks aren't damaged by seismic surveying or drilling.
"If there was the kind of impact assessment you'd expect in European countries, we could see where these wrecks were," he said. "We should be taking advantage of the data collected to map the seabed. There must be tens of thousands of wrecks off the Libyan coast. We'd then be in a position to advise, to ensure they weren't damaged."
Steven Anthony, President of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society in Washington DC, added that the wrecks - described as "time capsules" - could also be at risk from a potential spill.
"There needs to be more research of what happens to spilled oil before drilling begins," he said. "The oil industry and BP say that leaked oil floats. But in the Gulf of Mexico oil was observed in great clouds near the bottom of the sea.
"It has happened before and will happen again, sooner or later. There isn't enough information on what happens to the oil after it leaks, or how to remedy it. When the spill in the Gulf happened, it created a lot of discussion between archaeologists about the potential problems. The oil industry needs to invest more."
Dr Nic Flemming, a British archaeologist who first mapped Apollonia as a student in 1958, said, however, that the possibility of an oil spill ranked low among his concerns regarding dangers to ancient sites.
"It's a problem, but I would say it's 17th of a host of problems," he said. "Tankers already pump out bilge; there are already oil platforms; and ancient sites are being bulldozed because their coastal locations are so valuable. Countries sign up to protection treaties, but if somebody comes along with a lot of money and says 'I want to build a hotel that will create so many jobs', then the treaties are forgotten.
"I'm horrified by the changes over the past 30 years," he added. "I remember watching a town being bulldozed into the sea, complete with columns and mosaics, to make way for a new holiday resort. I hardly dare go to look at a site any more."
A BP spokesman said drilling will start later this year, adding that any leaked oil would float and that a full seismic survey had been carried out. He said plans for Libya had been reviewed in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico leak.
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13 Comments so far
Show AllB.P. is the leader of the free world ! They were in charge of America, so I am sure that they are in charge everywhere. Who cares about a bunch of old ships...who cares about all those dead animals...we don't ,we didn't even care about our own Gulf. We let them call all the shots ! "The Earth is such a wonderous gift given to us by the majic of the heavens" However that being said B.P. is greater than that. The earths blood that they keep taking will make us all pay for what we are doing, or not doing..
My heart breaks for how little we care about anything, but our own immidiate selves, we have little or no feelings about things that don't affect us directly,we murder people all over the planet for our gain,we wipe out animal species and don't even flinch. The day will come though when we will have to pay the piper,but we don't care because we hope it happens to our children or grandchildren just as long as it dosen't happen to us.
I think this generation of people especially Americans are the most selfish group since the Roman Empire ...
We are Cowards and have no backbones at all !
Look this article has been here for hours and nobody even cares enough to comment...lol, omg, asses, loosers, cowards, Americans.................In the words of Janis Joplin "It's all the same f#@%cking Day man"
Uh, its Sunday here in the US (a day that most Americans are not toiling to exchange their labor for coin), and we are too busy to spend all day in front of the computer.
If you dislike Americans so, why quote JJ?
Your point is???
If I dislike Stalin, I'm not supposed to quote him? What type of reasoning is that?
It is curious to note that Govt officials were sufficiently corrupt, and the local denizens sufficiently disinterested in the country that allowed a city of antiquity to be "bulldozed into the sea". It seems that apathy and corruption are universal diseases.
I do like Americans... of course I like them , but I am disapointed in the way we are behaving. I am hoping that we will see the truth and go in the right direction. Who we are.. when a disaster strikes, who we are, when we make cool movies ..and sing great songs...I like that America very much. The America that puts crazy religious manmade rules, before common sense humanity, that turns it's back on their own nieghbors, and makes judgements ...attacks Countries, and then starts acting as bad, as the enemy we say is so terrible...we should be smarter than that, and Education is the key, and our "Leaders" have slowley over time, taken that down to an all time low. I worry allot, because the corruption runs so deep now in this Country, everybody wants to get over, I'm not so sure that the terroists aren't winning, Bin Laden wanted us to bring ourselves down, with spending all our money on war, and breaking our own rules for morality, the Patriot act, so much of this is playing into their hands, and lately we have been acting so stupid...like building that wall at the Mexican border, that has been tried all over the world and has never worked !! Letting B.P. run the spill in our Gulf. Yet our fearless leaders keep coming up with the most stupid ideas ever !
So I don't hate America, I love her, I am America, but I am very disapointed in our leaders, and the public for going down some of these really bad choice roads, and for just acting so stupid.I don't understand why nobody is doing anything. We just keep talking and talking, I believe we need to speak up, and tell the Goverment we won't tolerate the way they have been running our Country...unless most of the people really do want war, and don't care about the deaths of all those people so far away. If that were to become the case, then just like in 2003 when most Americans wanted to attack Iraq, I was very ashamed of my "families" ignorance, to the story, and history of the Middle East, and Al Quidia, because anyone who knew that, also knew, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. You don't just go to War without finding out the facts...but we all did ! Not me, and a few others...I have not heard one person on this site talk about any proactive activity, no other sites either. Just the Tea Partiers, at least they are trying, but they are very confused,and deluted by religion, or fox.. reguardless they are getting somewhere, we are not ! The Republicans look like they will get control of the House again ! How could this be ? just 1 1/2 yrs. after G.W. ? That's why I am so harsh with my sentiment ! Joplin just reminded me of how frustrated I am ...
If a billionaire or trillionaire wants something, he gets it. Money is no object, he and his ilk own most of the governments, lock, stock and barrel.
Between crooked politicians, lawyers and judges, they will probably figure out a way to get whatever they paid reimbursed by We the Sheeple through taxes, fines, permit fees, etc.
Ancient cities, reserved old growth forests, pristine coral reefs. If they want to drill or log, or blast a super tanker channel to shorten the route, they do it.
And remember, when giants like BP save money by not installing appropriate safety equipment, or ignore the warnings of its engineers and technicians because rectifying the problem would cost some money, when all Hell breaks loose, they are not responsible. It is always an act of God, or an unavoidable accident, or the fault of some lesser subcontractor.
Remember also, the archeological remains of ancient Babylon, protected for generations for study, was bulldozed by our military to make an ammo and storage dump, over the objections of the world's archeological groups.
The Oligarchy wants war because war is the most profitable operation in the world. They care nothing for history, or humanity, beyond perhaps purchasing or stealing an art treasure for their living room or Board Room.
I am sure that, eventually, we shall all die from their implacable greed and lust for absolute power.
Oh, minitrue, sadly, no truer words have been spoken.
It's too bad we invaded Iraq with 'the Army we had' and didn't wait until we had the Army Rumsfeld wished he had.
Unfortunately, we sent too few invaders to save the archeological treasures in Baghdad.
However, Rumsfeld, and the Larger Band of Criminals need to be forgiven, since they had to give priority to guarding the oil fields.
It proved to be a wise decision – witness that the Neo-Free Iraq Government has at its disposal an abundance of resources with which to rebuild ‘their’ country.
Given the level of destruction of the UN World Heritage site of the City of Ur in Iraq by the US Military, plus the destruction and theft of hundreds of irreplaceable artifacts looted from the Baghdad Museum, what is the loss of one more piece of ancient human history?
These Corporate drones (I don't think they can be classified as 'people', let alone 'human') only care about the profit, and nothing about the people.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
razormirror writes on Sept. 12:
"Look this article has been here for hours and nobody even cares enough to comment...lol, omg, asses, loosers, cowards, Americans..."
Sometimes I read an article on CD that I find important and that registers, but to which I have nothing to add.
Thus, to justify the herein entry, perhaps I should observe that we are so Eurocentric that we have probably ignored most of the north African/Mediterranean coastal areas as archaeological sites. Think on this: how many Americans can place Carthage on a map? Let alone Tyre...or the Minoan Island Culture preceding Rome by thousands of years?
Minoans: we have surveyed the Mediterranean and we know we are small. We admit we are small; let's trade.
Who was that German archeologist who in the late 1800s (Schleiman?) "discovered" the grave of the Mythical Greek father of Oedipus? Now THERE is a conspiracy to which 9/11 pales.
Off the top of my head...
Take care.
I also have another question: What happened to put formerly thriving cities under the sea?
-30-
The reason for so few comments on this article may be that there has been a rising tide of celebrity pregnancies recently.
There is so much ‘news’ to keep track of anymore; well, it's just hard to keep on top of it all.
I just read an article today on artdaily.org about what is going on in Norway. The ice is melting so quickly that artifacts from the vikings of 3500 years ago are now surfacing. Arrows, feathers on arrows, an old leather shoe...the odd thing is that I thought that this melting was happening now, but the article also said that in1991, Otzi, a frozen man from centuries before was discovered in Europe when ice was melting.
To lose what previous cultures had and to examine those things and to know what they had created is mind bogling. This is so sad that Libyan artifacts are threatened by BP too. I read once too that an ancient Babylonian site held the amazing discovery of the Baghdad battery. Imagine that , they knew about batteries back then.
I also read an article in the Smithsonian about how when trying to repair the Parthenon, architects discovered that the tools the ancients used are superior to what we have today.
It's not just a curiousity to study the past, but there seem to be so much that they knew already that we had to wait thousands of years to relearn again. How did the Incas build those massive stone walls without mortar, and those walls still stand today.
Oh Libyan sites, I wonder what wonders we could learn if we could only realize that humans seem to build societies, then war them down, and then find thousands of years later, that we've only been repeating ourselves.