Timgad

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox ancient site

Timgad (Template:Langx, known as Marciana Traiana Thamugadi) was a Roman city in the Aurès Mountains of Algeria. It was founded by the Roman Emperor Trajan 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 Algeria, about Template:Convert 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 by UNESCO in 1982.

NameEdit

Template:Further 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 Trajan and his sister Marciana.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The second part of the name – Thamugadi – "has nothing Latin about it".<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> Thamugadi is the Berber name of the place where the city was built, to read Timgad plural form of Tamgut, meaning "peak" or "summit".<ref name=":0" />

HistoryEdit

The city was founded as a military colony by the emperor Trajan in the year 100 AD. It was intended to serve primarily as a Roman bastion against the Berbers in the nearby Aures Mountains, and it was originally populated largely by Roman veterans and colonists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The city enjoyed a peaceful existence for the first several hundred years and became a center of Christian activity starting in the 3rd century, and a Donatist center in the 4th century. During the Christian period, Timgad was a diocese which became renowned at the end of the 4th century when Bishop Optat became the spokesman for the Donatist movement. After Optat, Thamugadai had two bishops Gaudentius (Donatist) and Faustinus (Catholic).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the 5th century, the city was sacked by the Vandals 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 general Solomon 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, the early Muslim conquests brought about the final ruin of Thamugadi as it ceased to be inhabited by the 8th century.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Travelling Northern Africa, Scottish explorer James Bruce 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”.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Montoya, Rubén: The Sahara buried this ancient Roman city—preserving it for centuries at National Geographic, 30 July 2019.</ref>

Template:Wide imageIt 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.

DescriptionEdit

File:Timgad archaeological sites map-en.svg

Map of the Archeological site

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, 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, a library, and a basilica.

The Capitoline Temple is dedicated to Jupiter and is of approximately the same dimensions as the Pantheon in Rome. Nearby the capitol is a square church, with a circular apse dating from the 7th century AD. One of the sanctuaries featured iconography of (Dea) Africa.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> South of the city is a large Byzantine citadel built in the later days of the city.

LibraryEdit

File:Timgad, Algeria - panoramio (30).jpg

View of Timgad ruins

The Library at Timgad was a gift to the Roman people by Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus at a cost of 400,000 sesterces.<ref name="Pfeiffer">Pfeiffer, H. (1931). The Roman Library at Timgad. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 9, 157–165.</ref> 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.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/>

The library occupies a rectangle Template:Convert long by Template:Convert wide.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/> 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.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/> 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.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/> 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.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/>

It is possible that free-standing bookcases in the center of the room, as well as a reading desk, might also have been present.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/> 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.<ref name="Pfeiffer"/>

World Heritage SiteEdit

Timgad was inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.

GalleryEdit

Ruins of Timgad, February 24, 1928
ETH-BIB-Ruine in Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0216.tif
ETH-BIB-Ruine von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0168.tif
ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0169.tif
ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0170.tif
ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0212.tif
ETH-BIB-Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0215.tif
ETH-BIB-Ausstellungsgebäude in Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0213.tif
ETH-BIB-Statuten und Säulen in Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0214.tif
ETH-BIB-Übersicht über die Ruinen von Timgad-Mittelmeerflug 1928-LBS MH02-04-0217.tif