Excavations from the historic period of the Sahara are few and far between. This volume is an essential addition to the corpus and will become important reading for anyone interested in first millennium BC settlement in the Sahara (and, indeed, the surrounding regions). Furthermore, the low cost of the volume and multitude of clear illustrations, including several reconstruction drawings, make it accessible to a broad audience and will hopefully encourage its dissemination in Libya and other Saharan countries.

The volume details the results of the third major archaeological project conducted by the Italian–Libyan Archaeological Mission in the Sahara, which has worked in south-west Libya since 1997. It provides a full report of the excavations and survey conducted in 2002–2006 in the minor oasis of Fewet, part of the Wadi Tanzzuft system but essentially a secondary centre to the larger oasis of Ghat. The fieldwork can be divided into two main related parts: an investigation of a unique walled compound c. 850 m² within the Tan Afella part of Fewet and excavations and survey of the cairn cemetery located several hundred metres to the south-east on a rocky scarp. Additionally, there were some further elements of survey and test-trenching around the oasis which help to better contextualise the settlement compound. The project follows on from the publications of funerary structures in the Wadi Tanzzuft (di Lernia and Manzi Reference di Lernia and Manzi2002) and the fortified settlement of Aghram Nadarif (Liverani Reference Liverani2005).

The volume is essentially comprised of five parts: Chapters 1–3, which provide background and contextual information on the Wadi Tanzzuft and the oasis of Fewet; Chapters 4–5, which detail the excavation and fieldwork conducted on settlements in the oasis; Chapters 6–14, which cover a range of specialist studies on both the settlement and funerary material, including ceramics, beads, micromorphology, archaeobotany, and faunal assemblages; Chapters 15–18 describe the excavation and survey of the nearby necropolis, including osteological and isotopic studies of the human remains; finally, Chapters 19 and 20 conclude the volume and detail the restoration of the compound and provide an overall synthesis of the archaeology of Fewet in its Saharan context.

Around 60 per cent of the Tan Afella settlement was excavated (the remaining portion having been levelled by modern construction), revealing a sub-circular walled compound with 13 surviving houses adjoining the interior of the fortification wall. The dating suggests the settlement was in use from c. 200 BC–AD 100 before being partially demolished, burnt, and subsequently used as an enclosure for livestock. A key interpretation is that the compound was one of several that existed in the oasis, therefore it cannot be considered to represent a community in its totality. The compound is contemporary with the earliest phases at Jarma and Aghram Nadarif, as well as the later phases of Zinkekra and Tinda, and provides crucial evidence for the period in which permanent settlements in Saharan oases seem to have moved from hilltops into oasis basins.

The necropolis comprises 1,329 funerary structures, of which 24 were excavated. The cemetery was in use from the Late Pastoral to Late Garamantian period, so rather than being contemporaneous to the settlement, it overlaps it in time. The survey material is presented in detail with a tomb-by-tomb description of tomb types and funerary architecture; however, the decision to omit locational information limits the extent to which future analyses will be able to build on this rich dataset. The excavations are presented in exemplary detail and are an important contribution to Saharan funerary data. In particular, the details of tomb architecture, osteological data, and the inclusion of a small number of strontium isotope samples will be valuable for future research.

The volume may present some difficulty for readers who are not already familiar with the Garamantes and the work of the Italian Mission. The periods used are only defined in Chapter 20. The decision to place the specialist reports between the chapters detailing the excavation of settlements and the cemeteries may also give the impression to the casual reader that all the material came from the compound, when artefacts such as beads were actually primarily recovered from burials. This means that the reader must flick backward and forward within the volume if they wish to understand the context of the material detailed in the specialist reports. Further distractions originate from the absence of an index and the choice to include a separate bibliography for each chapter rather than a single, full bibliography at the end of the volume.

Mori and her collaborators argue that Fewet developed in parallel to but independently of the Wadi al-Ajal and they situate it in its Saharan context by drawing on diverse data, including that from the Tichitt tradition of Mauritania. They suggest that the site represents the first truly sedentary occupation of the Wadi Tanzzuft from 400 BC. They argue that an essentially pastoral population gradually adopted this radically new way of living in response to the increasing aridification of the oasis and the growth of social and economic networks across the Sahara. However, in the context of these networks, Fewet emerges as something of a backwater with relatively few indicators of trade and new technologies that are found elsewhere in the Sahara (although this may in part relate to its relatively early date).

The volume neatly complements the excavations of settlements at nearby Aghram Nadarif (Liverani Reference Liverani2005), and Zinkekra, Saniat Jibril, and Jarma from the Wadi al-Ajal (Mattingly Reference Mattingly2010; Reference Mattingly2013). Similarly, the funerary excavations parallel the work of the Desert Migrations Project, whose summary reports of excavations and surveys in the Wadi al-Ajal have been published in this journal (2007–11). While this volume does not directly reference these results, the synthesis of the Italian and British projects in Fazzan must be a key research aim for the immediate future. For now, Fewet will become the type site for its period, but it remains to be seen if its walled compound was a common form of Saharan architecture or an idiosyncratic form of local origins in the Wadi Tanzzuft. The scope of the excavations detailed in this volume allows for in-depth description of oasis lifeways and architecture from an otherwise poorly documented period. This is thus a vital contribution to our knowledge of the Sahara.