Timgad ( ar, تيمقاد, links=, lit=, translit=Tīmgād, known as Marciana Traiana Thamugadi) was a Roman city in the Aurès Mountains of

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. It was founded by the Roman Emperor

Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...

around 100 AD. The full name of the city was ''Colonia Marciana Ulpia Traiana Thamugadi''. Emperor Trajan named the city in commemoration of his mother Marcia, eldest sister

Ulpia Marciana Ulpia Marciana (August 48 – 112) was the beloved elder sister of Roman Emperor Trajan and grandmother of empress Vibia Sabina the wife of Hadrian. Upon her death her brother had her deified. Life She was the eldest child born to Roman woman ...

, and father Marcus Ulpius Traianus. Located in modern-day

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, about 35 km east of the city of Batna, the ruins are noteworthy for representing one of the best extant examples of the grid plan as used in Roman town planning. Timgad was inscribed as a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

by UNESCO in 1982.

Name

In the former name of Timgad, Marciana Traiana Thamugadi, the first part – Marciana Traiana – is Roman and refers to the name of its founder, Emperor

and his sister Marciana. The second part of the name – Thamugadi – "has nothing Latin about it". Thamugadi is the Berber name of the place where the city was built, to read Timgad plural form of Tamgut, meaning "peak", "summit".

History

Although most of them had never seen Rome before, and Timgad was hundreds of miles away from the Italian city, Trajan invested heavily in

Roman culture The culture of ancient Rome existed throughout the almost 1200-year history of the civilization of Ancient Rome. The term refers to the culture of the Roman Republic, later the Roman Empire, which at its peak covered an area from present-day Lo ...

and identity. The city enjoyed a peaceful existence for the first several hundred years and became a

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

of Christian activity starting in the

3rd century The 3rd century was the period from 201 ( CCI) to 300 ( CCC) Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar.. In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor Severus Alexande ...

, and a

Donatist Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and the ...

center in the 4th century. During the Christian period, Timgad was a

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

which became renowned at the end of the 4th century when

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

Optat became the spokesman for the Donatist movement. After Optat, Thamugadai had two bishops Gaudentius (Donatist) and Faustinus (

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

). In the

5th century The 5th century is the time period from 401 ( CDI) through 500 ( D) ''Anno Domini'' (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar. The 5th century is noted for being a period of migration and political instability throughout Eurasia. It saw the ...

, the city was sacked by the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

before falling into decline. Timgad was destroyed at the end of the 5th century by Berber tribes from the Aurès Mountains. In 535 CE, the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

general Solomon found the city empty when he came to occupy it during the

Vandalic War The Vandalic War was a conflict fought in North Africa between the forces of the Byzantine Empire and the Vandalic Kingdom of Carthage in 533–534. It was the first of Justinian I's wars of reconquest of the Western Roman Empire. The Vandal ...

. The Byzantine Reconquest revived some activities in the city, defended by a fortress built to the south, in 539, reusing blocks removed from Roman monuments. In the following century, the city was briefly repopulated as a primarily Christian city. The Arab invasion brought about the final ruin of Thamugadi and it ceased to be inhabited after the 8th century CE. Because no new settlements were founded on the site after the 7th century CE, the city was partially preserved under ground up to a depth of approximately one meter. Travelling Northern Africa, British explorer

James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North Africa and Ethiopia and in 1770 became the first Eur ...

reached the city ruins on 12 December 1765, likely being the first European to visit the site in centuries and described the city as “a small town, but full of elegant buildings.” In 1790, he published the book ''Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile'', where he described what he had found in Timgad. The book was met with skepticism in Great Britain, until 1875 when Robert Lambert Playfair, Britain's consul in Algiers, inspired by Bruce's account, visited the site. In 1877 Playfair described Timgad in more detail in his book ''Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis''. According to Playfair, “These hills are covered with countless numbers of the most interesting mega-lithic remains”. The French colonists took control of the site in 1881, began investigations and maintained it until 1960. During this period, the site was systematically excavated.

Description

Located at the intersection of six roads, the city was walled but not fortified. Originally designed for a population of around 15,000, the city quickly outgrew its original specifications and spilled beyond the orthogonal grid in a more loosely organized fashion. At the time of its founding, the area surrounding the city was a fertile agricultural area, about 1000 meters above sea level. The original Roman grid plan is magnificently visible in the orthogonal design, highlighted by the ''

decumanus maximus In Roman urban planning, a decumanus was an east–west-oriented road in a Roman city or castrum (military camp). The main decumanus of a particular city was the Decumanus Maximus, or most often simply "the Decumanus". In the rectangular street g ...

'' (east–west-oriented street) and the ''

cardo A cardo (plural ''cardines'') was a north–south street in Ancient Roman cities and military camps as an integral component of city planning. The cardo maximus, or most often the ''cardo'', was the main or central north–south-oriented street. ...

'' (north–south-oriented street) lined by a partially restored

Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

colonnade. The ''cardo'' does not proceed completely through the city but instead terminates in a ''forum'' at the intersection with the ''decumanus''. At the west end of the ''decumanus'' rises a 12 m high

triumphal arch A triumphal arch is a free-standing monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, cro ...

, called the '' Arch of Trajan'', which was partially restored in 1900. The arch is principally of sandstone, and is of the Corinthian order with three arches, the central one being 11' wide. The arch is also known as the Timgad Arch. A 3,500-seat theater is in good condition and is used for contemporary productions. The other key buildings include four

thermae In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout ...

, a library, and a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...

. The ''Capitoline Temple'' is dedicated to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

and is of approximately the same dimensions as the

Pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...

in Rome. Nearby the capitol is a square church, with a circular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

dating from the 7th century CE. One of the sanctuaries featured iconography of (Dea) Africa. South of the city is a large

citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. I ...

built in the later days of the city.

Library

The Library at Timgad was a gift to the Roman people by Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus at a cost of 400,000 sesterces.Pfeiffer, H. (1931). The Roman Library at Timgad. ''Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome'', 9, 157-165. As no additional information about this benefactor has been unearthed, the precise date of the library's construction remains uncertain. Based on the remaining archaeological evidence, it has been suggested by scholars that it dates from the late 3rd or possibly the 4th century. The library occupies a rectangle 81 feet (24.69 meters) long by 77 feet (23.47 meters) wide. It consists of a large semi-circular room flanked by two secondary rectangular rooms, and preceded by a U-shaped colonnaded portico surrounding three sides on an open court. The portico is flanked by two long narrow rooms on each side, and the large vaulted hall would have combined the functions of a reading room, stack room, and perhaps a lecture room. Oblong alcoves held wooden shelves along walls that would likely have been complete with sides, backs and doors, based on additional evidence found at the library at Ephesus. It is possible that free-standing bookcases in the center of the room, as well as a reading desk, might also have been present. While the architecture of the Library at Timgad is not especially remarkable, the discovery of the library is historically important as it shows the presence of a fully developed library system in this Roman city, indicating a high standard of learning and culture. While there is no evidence as to the size of the collection the library harbored, it is estimated that it could have accommodated 3,000 scrolls.

World Heritage Site

Timgad was inscribed as a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

in 1982.

Gallery

File:ETH-BIB-Ruine in Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0216.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Ruine von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0168.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0169.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0170.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0212.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0215.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Ausstellungsgebäude in Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0213.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Statuten und Säulen in Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0214.tif, File:ETH-BIB-Übersicht über die Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0217.tif,

References

External links

UNESCO site on TimgadImages of Timgad
on Manar al-Athar digital heritage photography archive
Photos of Timgad Map Location of Timgad
{{Authority control Roman towns and cities in Algeria Coloniae (Roman) Numidia (Roman provinces) Roman sites in Algeria Archaeological sites in Algeria Buildings and structures in Batna Province Roman fortifications in Roman Africa Former populated places in Algeria Populated places established in the 2nd century 100s establishments 100s establishments in the Roman Empire Ancient libraries Communes of Batna Province World Heritage Sites in Algeria