PHERO SEMEROS e i contesti spezzati. Nuovi schemata iconografici dalla necropoli di Cirene: dal traffico illecito alla ricostruzione dei contesti

The necropolis of Cyrene represents an unbelievable context, very rich in elaborated architectures, monumental funerary complexes and extraordinaire archaeological finds. This huge and inestimable site is still giving interesting news, especially from the sculptural point of view. However, the richness of this site and the unplanned and unsustainable modern urban encroachment in the area have determined for long time looting, vandalism and even the destruction of elaborated and monumental tombs. Numerous sculptures have been robed during last years and often are brought outside Libya to be sold illegally. Recently the Department of Antiquities has recovered two egregious sculptures, one of them from the southern necropolis of Cyrene, while the second one has been recovered in Tobruk by the army, with the help of the DoA, before passing the Egyptian border. Two Libyan colleagues (Abdulrhim S.Sharif and Said Alannabi) are collaborating here with the report concerning this statue from Tobruk, explaining how the statue was robbed from Cyrene, for a certain period was conserved illegally at Derna, probably by a Daesh group, together with other objects coming from Iraqi, Syria and Egypt, and then was moved to be sold in Egypt, but fortunately blocked by the army before passing the Libyan border. The two statues are dating to the 4th-3rd century BC and are gorgeous examples of Cyrenaican sculptures. They are both in Paros marble and present seated female statues, with elaborated dressing and iconographic schema very well known for strict parallels with the so called Cyrenaican Funerary Goddesses. Moreover, a third statue, quite similar for position, gesture, dressing and iconography, has been recently sold through web and is now in a private collection, and the traces of its ‘trip’ have been lost. However is important to present also this third statue together with the other two which are very similar, and to reconstruct at least, their cultural context. Moreover, the statue coming from the southern necropolis presents also an inscription with the name Phero Semeros, that is Phero, daughter of Semer, which can find parallels in Cyrene for both names: a detailed epigraphic and onomastic study of C. Dobias Lalou is here presented in appendix. Thanks to the work of the DoA we can reconstruct the context of this statue, which is a quite interesting and elaborated tomb, the S197, which has never been published before, but fortunately studied by Luca Cherstich, of Chieti University. Moreover, during a recent mission, also Oscar Mei, of Urbino University, has been able to control the area, so we now know how the context was and how it is now. Therefore this paper intends, with the contributions of several scholars of different Missions, both Italian, of Chieti (Oliva Menozzi, Luca Cherstich, Silvano Agostini) and Urbino (Oscar Mei) Universities as well as of the French Mission (Morgan Belzic and Catherine Dobias Lalou) and of the soas (School don (Igor Cherstich, ucl), to collaborate in studying and publishing the sculptures, in reconstructing the ‘broken contexts’ due to the looting, and try to understand the routes of the illicit traffic of these Cyrenaican sculptures up to the black market and to the international auctions. The paper represents a great example of how the collaboration among missions and DoA can help in recovering, relocating and re-contextualizing precious sculptures, which have otherwise contexts ‘broken’ forever.