Preserving the cultural heritage of Libya

The Centre for Hellenic Studies is delighted to congratulate Dr Hafed Walda, until recently a Research Fellow in the Centre, on his appointment to the Libyan delegation to UNESCO.

Dr Walda is a distinguished archaeologist with experience both of fieldwork and of the digital presentation of archaeological data; in a long association with King's he worked in the Department of Classics and of Digital Humanities.

From 2008 he was working with colleagues at King's to publish the Inscriptions of the Roman period from Libya: a first volume, presenting material from Tripolitania, Western Libya, appeared in 2009, and work continues on the second, presenting material from Cyrenaica, Eastern Libya, although this was delayed by the outbreak of the Libyan revolution in 2011.

Since then Dr Walda has been extensively involved in working to safeguard the cultural heritage of the country, working among others with Dr Will Wootton, Department of Classics.

At the end of 2011 he travelled on two expeditions to Libya, to inspect war damage, with the international Blue Shield team, whose work was presented at King’s in 2013.

Most recently he was a Research Fellow in the Centre for Hellenic Studies as part of a project on heritage management capacity for Libya. Colleagues at King's look forward to working with him, and with the Libyan Department of Antiquities, in continuing to build resources and support for the country's remarkable cultural heritage.