The 1971 Expedition was in the field for almost a month over Easter, thanks to the continued kindness and good will of the Libyan Department of Antiquities, and further generous financial support from the British Academy, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, the Society for Libyan Studies and the University of Newcastle.

The site of Saniat Gebril lies 300 yards east of the abandoned mud-brick town of Germa. Trial trenching (1965) and surface sherding had shown that at least 5 acres of compact settlement existed there, with the strong likelihood that more sparsely-placed buildings stretched as far as Germa. From the previous work it was thought that the main settlement consisted of a series of smallish mud-brick buildings, occupied from the late-first century A.D. until the early-third century, when the site was abandoned and not subsequently re-occupied.