Towards the 70th Anniversary (1955-2025) of the Joint Libyan-Italian Archaeological Mission in the Tadrart Acacus and Messak (SW Libya).

The archaeological and scientific cooperation between Libya and Italy started in the 1920s. A few years after World War ii, Fabrizio Mori initiated the archaeological mission in the Tadrart Acacus, a sandstone massif in southwestern Libya, laying the foundation of one of the longest enterprises in the North African country. After a short background of the mission and a concise summary of the main scientific results, the paper focuses on the main activities of the Mission – especially the publications in the Series «aza - Arid Zone Archaeology, Monographs» – carried out after the beginning of the Revolution (2011), as well as on the principal objectives to achieve on the short term. It also highlights new research avenues that leverage extensive data from over fifty years of fieldwork in the Sahara, employing advanced cutting-edge techniques to investigate socio-cultural and technological developments. A fundamental action will be directed toward the removal of the Tadrart Acacus from the unesco World Heritage sites in danger. In addition, a special attention is placed on year 2025, which will represent the 70th anniversary of the Mission (1955-2025), and the centenary of the birth of Fabrizio Mori (1925-2025), the founder of the mission and its director until 1996.