Archive for the ‘Roman’ Category

  • June24

    Taste of Libya – Leptis Magna

    Leptis Magna, hometown of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, was a grand city and one of the Roman Empire’s most important cities – and is one of the most stunning examples of Roman ruins anywhere in the world, with many giving it the nod as the most impressive ruins.


     

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  • April23

    Sabratha : A Little Slice of Rome

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    In Roman times the Tripolitania province had three cities, called Tripolis, Leptis Magna, Oea (now the modern Tripoli) and Sabratha. Sabratha was to a large extent the one with least wealth, yet it boasts one of the best preserved theatres of the Roman era.


    Sabratha was constructed in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, but it did survive longer than its big brother, Leptis Magna. As is the case with many ancient cities in North Africa, it was the arrival of the Arabs, that resulted in the final decline.


    The theatre is the main attraction, and it appears in excellent condition today. It is even used now as an arena for theatre and concerts. Sabratha has several public baths, temples, fountains and mosaics. The museum is a must, and has an extensive exhibition of everything from statues to small coins.


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  • December4

    Submerged Roman City Discovered in Libya

    Roman Ruins


    A submerged Roman city was discovered by Italian archaeologists off the coast of Libya , in the Gulf of Bomba near the city of Tobruk and generated a lot of buzz in archaelogical circles – from Ansa Med ( www.ansamed.info.), Italy’s leading news agency:


    The group is carrying out archaeological searches along the African coastline as part of the ArCoLibia (Coastal Archaeology of Libya) project, which was started a few years ago and which has already led to such exceptional finds as that of the Venetian ship ”Tigre”, which had sunk off the cape of Ras al-Hilal. The first traces of the buried city were found during reconnaissance diving in the waters of Ras Etteen. The archaeologists were searching for shipwrecks and port structures on the western edge of the Gulf of Bomba.


    They found walls, roads, buildings and tombs at a depth of between one and three metres. It is a portion which extends over a hectare of a large city which some of the scholars had intuited the presence of due to the remains of wall structures hidden among the sandy dunes hit by strong winds.


    It is believed that a large part of the city sunk due to a large tsunami. Initial morphological analysis showed that changes to the area were macroscopic even in recent times, and the ruins found at the bottom of the sea are part of a city existing in the Imperial Roman era during the second century AD.


     

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