Sabratha

A Phoenician trading post from around 500 BC on the Libyan coast, 70 km west of Tripoli, that got rich enough under Rome to double in size, and the theatre it built in the Severan period still has its full three-storey stage backdrop standing, which very few Roman theatres anywhere do. This is also where Apuleius, the author of The Golden Ass, was put on trial for using magic to make a wealthy widow marry him; his defence speech survives and he was acquitted. UNESCO listed it in 1982 and moved it to the danger list in 2016, and the threat here is not only conflict. Sabratha is built of calcarenite, which weathers badly under marine spray, and it sits on an eroding coast with the sea rising against it. Libya carries severe travel advisories; this is a record of what is there.