Martin Harrison Papers.

Manuscript copy of an address given by Martin Harrison to the Society for Libyan Studies regarding Cyrenaica.

Martin Harrison (c1935 - September 1992) was a Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at Oxford and formerly Professor of Archaeology at Newcastle upon Tyne.

He had been a member of the Society for Libyan Studies since its foundation and sat on the Council from 1985 to 1989. The main areas of his fieldwork were in Turkey but he always felt a lively interest in Libya, deriving from the year 1960/1 which he spent as Acting-Controller of Antiquities in Cyrenaica during Richard Goodchild's absence in East Africa.

He directed - and published - three excavations for the Department of Antiquities, in the House of the Orpheus Mosaic at Ptolemais, in the sixth century church at Ras el Hilal, and in the Greco-Roman Theatre at Apollonia (where, although the second season was directed by Goodchild, it was Harrison who wrote up the findings).

His affection for the country and the people whom he met there was real and expressed itself later very notably in the help that he gave to a number of young Libyans who came to the Department of Archaeology which he developed in Newcastle upon Tyne and found there an encouraging environment in which to study for doctorates.

He died in September 1992 at the age of 57.

Source: Joyce Reynolds, 'Professor Richard Martin Harrison,' Libyan Studies, Volume 24, January 1993, pp i - ii.

Available for general access

Please contact the BILNAS General Secretary on gensec@bilnas.org If you wish to consult the archive.

The material was passed from Joyce Reynolds to John Dore who subsequently deposited it to the Society for Libyan Studies Archive on 6 November 1992.