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Tokra or Tukra is a small village
in Eastern Libya, located about 70 kilometres east of
Benghazi city. Tokra was one of the five cities of the
Greek Pentapolis. The village is also known as
Teucheira,
Toukhira,
or
al-A'quriyah, the last from which
Google-map derived its
Aquriya.
The village, suitably located between the mountains
and the sea,
is a wonderful Libyan village, providing breathtaking scenery and landscape.
According to archaeologists, the village is a good example of how a modest Libyan
(Berber) settlement would have looked like, and how the majority of
ancient locals would have lived.
Tokra was an important export port during the Greek period, which became a busy
commercial centre after falling under Roman influence during the fist century
BC. The city began to lose its status during the Byzantine period, and by the
time it was taken by Ibn Ala's she was no more.
As the above photo illustrates, the majority of the archaeological sites
are still to be excavated, and therefore our conception
of the ancient settlement is limited to what we already
know: very little.
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