Cyrene, also sometimes anglicized as Kyrene, was an ancient Greek colony and Roman city near present-day Shahhat in northeastern Libya in North Africa. It was part of the Pentapolis, an important group of five cities in the region, and gave the area its classical and early modern name Cyrenaica.
Sanctuary of Apollo at Cyrene
Arcesilaus II oversees the weighing of silphium for export, on a Laconian kylix, ca. 565-560 BC.
The Temple of Zeus, Cyrene
The Cyrene bronze head in the British Museum (300 BC).
Greek colonisation refers to the expansion of Archaic Greeks, particularly during the 8th–6th centuries BC, across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.
Illustration of an Archaic Greek ship on pottery, c. 520 BC
The Argonautica, the myth thought to pertain to the bold nautical expeditions of this period
Ruins of Abdera, a classical city of Thrace, in present-day Greece
The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, in present-day Italy