Postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica Postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica, now part of Libya. Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya and also an ex-province or state ("muhafazah" or "wilayah") of the country (alongside Tripolitania and Fezzan) in the pre-1963 administrative system. What used to be Cyrenaica in the old system is now divided up into several "shabiyat" (see administrative divisions in Libya). In addition to the coastal region, "i.e." historical Cyrenaica, the former province, during the Kingdom and the Italian era extended to the south to include the
Georgia (country) from the "Karts", the latter being one of the proto-Georgian tribes that emerged as a dominant group in ancient times. The name "Sakartvelo" (საქართველო) consists of two parts. Its root, "kartvel-i" (ქართველ-ი), specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, or Iberia as it is known in sources of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ancient Greeks (Strabo, Herodotus, Plutarch, Homer, etc.) and Romans (Titus Livius, Tacitus, etc.) referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians ("Iberoi" in some Greek sources). The Georgian circumfix "sa"-X-"o" is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X