I spent a week in Libya in November 2005 ; I took a direct flight to Tripoli to meet friends who were already in the country; I only had hand luggage; this had consequences.
I brought a mobile ‘phone and a small radio neither of which worked in Libya. I stowed them neatly at the bottom of my bag. When I unpacked at home the ‘phone had been taken out of its case and put back upside down. The radio earphones were no longer wrapped neatly around the radio. I was flattered that Gaddafi felt it was worth while sending someone to check up on me. I was especially pleased that I hadn’t risked filling a shampoo bottle with booze.
We visited well-preserved Roman sites the best of which was Leptis Magna. Leptis rivalled Carthage and Alexandra in its day and its preservation is largely the result of being buried in sand; something that happened to a church in Cornwall, St Pirin’s. One of the anecdotes the guide told us was about the Emperor Napoleon ordering parts of the remains to be sent to France continuing a project initiated by Louis XIV in the 17th century. We saw columns lying on the beach still waiting to be loaded.
I now think the story is untrue. The columns were bound for the British Museum in 1816. The Elgin Marbles had been well-received and our man in Tripoli thought his reputation would be burnished by sending back some Roman remains. First, although the project was approved by the Libyan authorities, the locals were furious. The Roman stonework was an important source of building materials (remember many farmhouses in the Borders are built of stone from Hadrian’s Wall). A decent column could be sliced to make millstones. They interfered with the transport of the stones and in the end some columns had to be abandoned on the beach.
The stones of Leptis were delivered to the forecourt of the British Museum but were not deemed suitable to be displayed inside. They were taken to Windsor Great Park and erected on the shore of Virginia Water.
Virginia Water was the largest man-made lake in Britain when it was constructed at the instigation of the Duke of Cumberland between 1746 and 1765. It was extended by George III in the 1780s. The walk around the perimeter is attractive, takes about two hours and has a good pub halfway round.
What an extraordinary story. Thanks for telling it.
Wasn’t St Enedoc, the north Cornwall church that was resurrected from being partially covered by sand?
But thank you for explaining the origin of the Virginia Water columns.
The Cornish are careless with their churches – they allowed two churches to be buried in sand: St Enedoc’s and St Piran’s Oratory. The latter dates back to the 6th century and is one of the oldest places of Christian worship in Britain, according to the BBC. It is also the subject of a lovely short story by Arthur Quiller-Couch: Saint Piran and the Visitation.
http://www.online-literature.com/quiller-couch/delectable-duchy/9/