Sour El-Ghizlane (or Souk El Ghoziane) is a town and commune in

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

's central-northern, just-landlocked

Bouïra Province Bouïra (, ) is a province ('' wilaya'') in the Kabylie region (also known as Tazwawa) in Algeria. History The province was created from parts of Médéa (département) and Tizi-Ouzou department in 1974. Administrative divisions It is made ...

. According to the 1998 census it has a population of 42,179.

History

Pre Historic

A prehistoric tool (biface) testifying to the human presence from

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

times was found west of the city. It is a town inhabited since prehistoric times, the first city founded in Roman province in the center of deep Algeria, a Roman fortress but originally a

Numidia Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia and Libya. The polity was originally divided between ...

n city. Its construction dates from the year 33 av. AD during the reign of Emperor Augustus. Auzia quickly became a powerful city, capital of the highland regions, which relegates to a secondary role the strategic importance of the Roman city of Djemila, the ancient Cuicui, in the wilaya of Setif because of its remoteness from the centers Of Roman power.

Roman Empire

At the time of the Roman presence in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, the city bore the name of Auzia. The remains of a theater have been spotted there. It is the location of the Roman city Auzia, in the province

Mauretania Caesariensis Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for "Caesarea, Numidia, Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in present-day Algeria. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea, Numidia, Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had ...

.Names of cities in Algerie in (A.D. 138) Roman times and names now
fro
E-DZ Community , Education & Learning

Algerian History, Culture, Art, Law, Politics
(order by start date; start date: 21 Dec 2008). The name Auzia is still used as a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

titular bishopric A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

. Auzia was part of the division of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

. Its position as a city at the gates of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

marked the beginning of the period when the Roman conquest reached the limits of the world known at the time and where the Roman civilization. The city of Auzia has two characteristics in Roman history in North Africa, its great influence on its bureaucratic and military structure and its strategic location as a great religious edifice. Like the construction of the temple of Apollo, supposed to be located at the present site of the civil hospital of Sour-El-Ghozlane. Auzia was equipped with an

amphitheater An amphitheatre ( U.S. English: amphitheater) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ('), meaning "place for vie ...

built by the city's bourgeois institution to host shows, such as

gladiator A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...

ial fights. The

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

also have a bath house, forum and

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

s. In addition, Auzia is identified as a city with political power dominated by a patriarchal link and entirely in the hands of two comites, organized to reflect at best the tribal divisions of the city. On the other hand, its administrative and military status reveals that it was definitively subjected to the order of the

with the status of autonomous city of the Roman province (free zone: region of Algiers to Bou-Saada) caesarean. Auzia is a large city of ovoid form, destined to serve as capital in this region of central Algeria, Auguste had it endowed with several public edifices: a forum (present room of the festivals), several temples, a curia, a market, a theater and large thermal baths. Auzia was erected on a hill at a moderate altitude, where to this day a wall was in good condition in some places, revealing a kind of citadel which protected the inhabitants. Around the year 17 Tacfarinas, who had served in the Roman Army before deserting to take the lead of a revolt by federated Berber tribes and their

Moorish The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defi ...

neighbors, whose leaders Mazippa, and the Cinithians revolted against the

Roman army The Roman army () served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 1453), including the Western Roman Empire (collapsed Fall of the W ...

. The insurrection, based on the tactics of harassment (contemporary guerrilla warfare), stretched from Little Syrte in the east to

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, encompassing northern present-day Morocco, and from the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean in the ...

in the west and lasted seven years. The proconsul Cornelius Dolabella ended the war by besieging the fort of Tacfarinas, presumably situated at Auzia, in the year 24 apr. AD It was also the most frequented Roman tourist spot for the gazelle hunting that the city itself was named by the Algerian administration Sour-El-Ghozlane meaning Rampart of the Gazelles. For a long time, Auzia was a commercial city but its development was hampered by several internal conflicts and violent tribal revolts.

French Colonial

Sour El Ghozlane served under the French as a

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

post from 1845 and received the name of Aumale in honor of the

Duke of Aumale Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

, son of

Louis Philippe Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the penultimate monarch of France, and the last French monarch to bear the title "King". He abdicated from his throne ...

Famous Residents

The poets Djamel Amrani (1935-2005), Messaour Boulanouar (1933), Kaddour M'Hamsadji (1933) and Arezki Metref (1952) are natives of Sour El-Ghozlane and M'hamed Aoune lived there. Mourad Kaouah (1919-1989) and the French actor

Jean-Claude Brialy Jean-Claude Brialy (30 March 1933 – 30 May 2007) was a French actor and film director. Early life Brialy was born in Aumale (now Sour El-Ghozlane), French Algeria, where his father was stationed with the French Army. Brialy moved to mainland ...

(1933-2007) were also born there. In La Chimère and the Gui (ed. Of the Writers, 2002) General Norbert Molinier speaks at length about his childhood in Aumale. A text by Jean Sénac entitled Poetry by Sour-El-Ghozlane was published in 1981 by L'Orycte, and reprinted in Jean SénacJean Sénac, Pour une terre possible (Paris, Marsa, 1999). Conrad Detrez and Vital Lahaye taught in the early 1970s at El-Ghazali High School in Sour El-Ghozlane.

Sources and References

{{Bouïra Province Communes of Bouïra Province Algeria geography articles needing translation from French Wikipedia Bouïra Province Cities in Algeria