Things to see and do Syrte

The driveway planted with large trees at the entrance takes direction of the sea and remains of the fatimide mosque.

But we will first see, behind the enclosure on the left, the two great bronze statues of the Philènes brothers on a large outdoor slab. Originally, these two statues were integrated on both sides - one looking at Cyrenaica and the other towards Libya - from the triumphal arch of the Philènes. This monumental 30 m arch spanned the Italian-built coastal road, Via Balbia, inaugurated by Mussolini in 1937. The arc was in the historical location of the border between the two regions, set in antiquity following the episode of the Philènes brothers (see box), east of the current oil complex in Ras Lanuf.

To celebrate the patriotic episode of the Philènes brothers in an effort to capture the ancient past of Libya to the glory of the new fascist Rome, the Arc also wore a quotation from the Roman poet Horace «O Sun feeder, you can see nothing larger than Rome» and one of Mussolini, dated 5 May of Year XIV of fascism beginning with: " A step in our way is reached… ". One can go to see this last quotation engraved on a plate in the enceinte of the statues: 30 m farther to the north-east, in the grass, among the friezes sculpted to the glory of fascist soldiers and colonization (we will also notice the Roman Wolf) which adorned the arc. After the defeat of Axis forces in Libya, the English in the th Army of General Montgomery rebaptisèrent the Limestone arch arc "Marble Arch", by reference to the Marble Arch of London. It was destroyed in the 1970 s.

By continuing the path to the sea (only if you have time), we lead the foundations of a fatimide mosque which was endowed with a octagonal minaret with a staircase surrounding it to its summit, in accordance with the fatimide architecture. These modest ruins remind us that there was a prosperous medieval city in the th century, Sort. Formerly a former Punic and Roman settlement, Sort was installed near a natural harbour. The Arab geographer Al-Bakri described it in the 914 th century as a large city that would have been expanded and fortified by the son of the founder of the fatimide dynasty (which won it in). But the invasion of the hilaliennes tribes in the middle th rang the end of Fate's urban Life.

The small museum at the entrance to the site contains vestiges found on the site of the Fatimide mosque, those of an ancient mosque found in Ben Jawad, and antique oil lamps found in the region.

At 5 km after the roundabout at the exit of the city in the direction of Benghazi, we must not miss to go to the giant open water reservoir open from the Artificial Grand River (we see it from the road, but the entrance and access path are 2 km further on the right). It is a real artificial lake with a capacity of 6,8 million cubic metres of water. The water of the Great Artificial River is distributed here between Sirte and Benghazi. It arrives from the main reservoir of Ajdabiya, after a journey of nearly 2 000 km in concrete concrete ducts 4 m in diameter from the wells of Sarir and those of Tazirbou in the desert in the south-east of the country. The Sirte reservoir was inaugurated in 1993 at the end of Phase I of the Great Artificial River project. A very clear map of the river is located on the bank of this reservoir that resembles a lake. Two years ago, we arrived at the reservoir after being moved not far from the village of technicians and engineers supervising Phase III of the Great Artificial River project, which consisted of connecting Phases I (to the east of the country) and II (to the west) (see box «La Grande Rivière Artificial» in the chapter «Economics»).

The countryside around Sirte is littered with new wells for irrigation of fields with the waters of the Great Artificial River. It is therefore developing an agricultural sector created by any room in this arid area of the sea where the Bedouin pastoralism was traditional activity. The pivotal ramps, which were the spearhead of the Saharan agriculture in Kufra or in the Fezzan, are now in the new countryside in Sirte extending between the Sea and the Littoral road.