For many years, outsiders saw the deep heart of Libya's southwestern desert as barren, hostile territory with little to offer archaeologists other than sporadic Roman allusions to unruly desert tribes. Since international researchers had little access to the area and the region's pre-Islamic history was rarely a state priority, this impression remained largely unquestioned for decades. Uncovering what had been concealed beneath the sand for two millennia would take modern satellite technology paired with whatever narrow access to the ground researchers could manage.
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