Archaeological Site The ancient city of Cyrena is located in northeast Libya, on the Mediterranean coast, next to the modern city of Shahkhat. The city was founded in 630 BC by the ancient Greeks - immigrants from the island of Thira (Santorini). The city was dedicated to the god Apollo, and named after his wife - the nymph Cyrene. Cyrena soon became the capital of the historical region of Cyrenaica, a trading port and a prosperous city - the largest and richest of the five Greek settlements in the region. Until 440 BC, the rulers of Cyrene were the kings of the Battiad dynasty, during the Greco-Persian wars the city became part of the Persian kingdom, after the victory of Alexander the Great over Darius I - the Macedonian empire. After the death of Alexander the Great, Cyrene was under the rule of the Ptolemies, and in 74 BC the city became part of the Roman province. Under the Romans, the city retained its importance as the administrative center of the province of Cyrenaica. Abundant grain crops were harvested in Kiren, cattle were raised, coins made of precious metals were minted. The city had a monopoly on the export of the medicinal plant sylphium (which had long disappeared from the face of the Earth), considered by the Greeks and Romans to be a gift of Apollo - medicines for many diseases were prepared from sylphium, a recipe for fragrant seasoning from sylphium and pine seeds was also preserved (due to its high cost, the seasoning was only Roman nobility is available). The city was praised by poets, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote about it, in Cyrene there was a philosophical school founded in the 3rd century BC by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristippus, the mathematician Theodore (founder of the theory of irrational numbers), the poet Callimachus, the ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes were born here. The strongest earthquake in 365 instantly turned a rich and prosperous city into ruins. Cyrene did not recover from the destruction, and after the conquest of the region by the Arabs, the city was finally destroyed and left by the inhabitants in 643. The ruins of the city of Cyrena were discovered in the eighteenth century by Italian archaeologists. During the excavations, the ruins of the temple of Apollo, built in the 7th century BC, were found, 50 meters from the temple is the Apollo fountain, whose waters were considered healing. In the northwestern part of the city are the ruins of a Roman theater built on Greek foundations. Other ruins include the Temple of Demeter and the partially excavated temple of Zeus. On the road leading from Cyrena to ancient Apollonia, there is a large necropolis and ancient tombs. In 2005, archaeologists discovered 76 Roman statues dating back to the 2nd century (including the famous Venus of Cyrene) under the ruins of the temple of Zeus - the statues lay under rubble of stone, debris and soil for about 1600 years. Most of the finds are located in the museum of the city of Benghazi and in the storage on the territory of Cyrene itself. Since 1982, the ancient city of Cyrene has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.