Postage stamps and postal history of Cyrenaica and Fezzan were united as the Italian colony of Libya. Stamps of colonial Cyrenaica were inscribed "Cirenaica" and printed at the Italian Government Printing Works. British stamps overprinted M.E.F. (Middle East Forces) were used from 1943 to 1948 after the area was captured by the British during World War II. From 1 July 1948 stamps overprinted "B.M.A. TRIPOLITANIA" were used. Cyrenaica enjoyed a brief period of internal autonomy in 1949-51 when the British authorities recognised Amir Mohammed Idris Al-Senussi as Emir of Cyrenaica, which ended on 24 December 1951 when Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan were unified as the Kingdom of
Greek colonisation of the Teians. On the eastern shore, which was known in ancient times as Colchis and in which today for the greater part is in Georgia and the autonomous region of Abkhazia, the Greeks founded the cities of Phasis and Dioscouris. The latter was called "Sebastopolis" by the Romans and Byzantines and is known today as Sukhumi—the ruins of the ancient and Byzantine foundations are now found principally below the waterline. The Greek colonies expanded as far as the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. In North Africa, on the peninsula of Cyrenaica, colonists from Thera founded Cyrene, which evolved into