Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Ptolemais on the Mediterranean coast of Libya have discovered a sophisticated water management system in a house dating to the late 2nd century, early 3rd century A.D. Part of the system is a cistern that was found to contain an anonymous human face made of the hydraulic mortar that lined its walls. Originally founded by Greek settlers from Thera in the 7th century B.C., it was the port town of its much larger neighbor Barce and didn’t even have a name of its own. It was founded as a large, fortified city in its own right in the 3rd century B.C. by Ptolemy III Euergetes of Egypt and named Ptolemais after him. It prospered in the Hellenistic period under Roman rule, becoming the capital of the imperial province of Libya Superior at the end of the 3rd century A.D. A archaeological mission from the University of Warsaw began excavating the site in 2001 and continued every season until 2011, mapping the city’s grid with geophysical scans and uncovering important structures including the remarkable House of Leukaktios with its richly painted walls and doorways and mosaic floors. Their research was interrupted by revolution and civil war for 13 years. The mission resumed excavations in 2023, and thankfully found no major damage to the site from war. (The invasive Grey Tobacco plant wreaked havoc, however, growing into big bushes and cracking the walls of excavated structures.) This year’s excavation focused on the town house of a local dignitary, uncovering the eastern portion of the villa with a small peristyle courtyard surrounded by a kitchen, a staircase leading to the first story and a room with a mosaic floor. The floor had been repaired several times, and the residence suffered repeated damage in earthquakes that struck the area in the second half of the 3rd century. Three stone containers found near the entrance suggest the house was rebuilt in the late Roman imperial period. Such containers were typically used during that period to deposit payments of money, goods and gifts for the official who lived in the home. The house had an advanced system for collecting drinking water. Its key element was the peristyle pool (impluvium) that collected rainwater and drained it into two underground cisterns. […] The most surprising find for archaeologists this season was a human face modeled in a plastic mass of hydraulic mortar, which covered the walls of one of the water cisterns. As described by archaeologists, the mask is devoid of any attributes that would allow its identification. Also, the lack of known analogies gives a wide field for various interpretations. “The face discovered in the cistern bears a certain resemblance to human faces carved on the walls of the Libyan sanctuary in Slonta, located south of Cyrene. It cannot be completely ruled out that the owner of the house, or at least the people involved in creating the image, were of Libyan origin. Thanks to epigraphic sources, it is known that at least from the 1st century BC, the citizenship of the Greek cities of Cyrenaica was also granted to the quickly assimilating representatives of the Libyan elites. However, this is just speculation for now,” explained Dr. Piotr Jaworski.