Timgad (, known as Marciana Traiana Thamugadi) was a Roman city in the Aurès Mountains of

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 ...

. It was founded by the Roman Emperor

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

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

, about 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 World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

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" or "summit".

History

The city was founded as a military

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

by the emperor

in the year 100 AD. It was intended to serve primarily as a Roman bastion against the

Berbers Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connec ...

in the nearby Aures Mountains, and it was originally populated largely by Roman veterans and colonists. Although most of them had never seen Rome before, and Timgad was hundreds of miles away from the Italian city, it invested heavily in Roman culture and identity. The city enjoyed a peaceful existence for the first several hundred years and became a center of

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

activity starting in the 3rd century, and a Donatist center in the 4th century. During the Christian period, Timgad was a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, prov ...

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

Bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

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 List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

). In the 5th century, the city was sacked by the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

before falling into decline. Timgad was destroyed at the end of the 5th century by Berber tribes from the Aurès Mountains. In 539 AD, during the Moorish wars, the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

general

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

retook and rebuilt the city, incorporating it into Byzantine North Africa. The reconquest revived some activities in the city, which became part of a line of defense against the Moors. However, the

early Muslim conquests The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (), also known as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established the first Islamic state in Medina, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia that ...

brought about the final ruin of Thamugadi as it ceased to be inhabited by the 8th century. Travelling Northern Africa, Scottish explorer

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

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. It was by decision of the Ministry of Public Education and Fine Arts that excavations began in the 1880s in Timgad, and a post of chief architect of historical monuments of Algeria was created, with the aim of managing the service of historical monuments of Algeria and taking care of the excavation and restoration sites.

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'' (east–west-oriented street) and the '' cardo'' (north–south-oriented street) lined by a partially restored Corinthian 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, and usually standing alone, unconnected to other buildings. In its simplest form, a triumphal ...

, 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 Roman Empire, imperial public bath, bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed i ...

, a library, and a

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

. The ''Capitoline Temple'' is dedicated to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

and is of approximately the same dimensions as the Pantheon in Rome. Nearby the capitol is a square church, with a circular

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

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

citadel A citadel is the most 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. ...

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 long by 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 Ephesus (; ; ; may ultimately derive from ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, in present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of Apasa, the former Arzawan capital ...

. 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 (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

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