Since the late Sandro Stucchi organised the pioneering Urbino conference in 1981 (Stucchi and Luni 1987), the relations of the ancient Eastern Libyans with their northeastern African neighbors, whether Egyptian or Greek, have been the object of much discussion in print (Barker 1989, 31–43; Knapp 1981, 249–279; Leahy 1985, 51–65; O'Connor 1983, 271–278 and 1987, 35–37) as well as the focus of another international conference, this time organised by Anthony Leahy for the Society of Libyan Studies joined with the University of London's School of African Studies Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies (Leahy et al. 1990). The 1986 joint SOAS/Society for Libyan Studies conference concentrated on Libyan-Egyptian relations prior to the middle of the 8th century BC, which normally stand outside the immediate purview of classical archaeologists, even though the Urbino conference and the first Cambridge Colloquium organised by Joyce Reynolds in 1984 both included some discussion of the pre-Greek Libyans (Baldassarre 1987,17–24; Beltrami 1985,135–143; Tinè 1987,15–16). While this acceleration of interest would no doubt gratify Oric Bates (dead since 1918), it would also perhaps pique his curiosity even more to read that after so many years the third and second millenia BC Libyans still remain archaeologically largely undocumented (Knapp 1981, 258, 263–264; Leahy 1985, 52; O'Connor 1983, 271 and 1990, 45), especially since he himself had cause to believe that he had excavated their remains in the vicinity of Marsa Matruh (Bates 1915a, 201–207, 1915b, 158-165 and 1927, 137–140; Petrie 1915, 165–166 and 1920, 36).