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Land of the five cities. Founded in the early seventh or sixth century B.C.E., the city of Cyrene (its Roman forum is shown) stood 200 miles west of the modern Libyan-Egyptian border. Cyrene achieved prominence in the Hellenistic period as the capital of the Libyan “Pentapolis,” or land of the five cities: Cyrene, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Tauchira and Berenice. Tellingly, one of the ossuaries in the Kidron Valley tomb bears the inscription “Sara (daughter) of Simon, of Ptolemais.” This may be another indication that the people buried in the tomb had come from the Jewish Diaspora community in the province of Cyrenaica.