Timgad

Site visited December 2013. Timgad is the largest and arguably the best of the Roman archaeological sites of Algeria. I think it is also one of top three Roman sites of Africa and, I dare to say, probably among the best outside of Italy. Timgad is not known for its imposing buildings but for town planning and well preserved grid plan. In this review I focus mainly on the practical issues of visiting Timgad.

Algeria, especially the eastern part of the country, is one of the hotspots of Roman archaeological sites. Apart from the inscribed ones there are several sites worth mentioning: Tiddis, Madauros (Madaure), Hippo Regius (Hippone), Theveste, Thubursicum and Lambaesis. Many of these have been collected to a TWHS Sites, lieux et itineraires augustiniens du Maghreb central.

Timgad or Thamugadi is an ancient military colony founded in 100 AD by Trajan. It is a good example of Roman town planning. It is originally a city with a tight grid plan. Two main streets cardo and decumanus go through it. In the center of these two streets are spacious forum and a theatre. In the middle of 2nd century the city grew outside the original orthogonal design. Outside the grid plan are Capitol, several churches and baths, markets and some homes. A big Byzantine fortress 0,5 kilometres from the original city is the last built structure in Timgad.

Visiting Timgad feels like being long away from everything. It is a …

On the morning of April 16,1928, my mother and I were among the very few--and silent few as I recall-- standing among the melancholy ruins of Timgad.

I also visited the Bardo museum with its magnificent collection of mosaics. I believe it is now closed.

With 3 of Algeria’s 7 sites being “Roman ruins” it is perhaps too easy to slide into the “just another ruined city” syndrome if Timgad isn’t your first. Yet each is different from the other and the value to be gained from visiting each comes from teasing out their differences rather than from identifying their similarities! Mind you – we visited 2 other non-UNESCO Roman sites, so we were reaching our limit!

Timgad’s “speciality” lies on the fact that it was built in 100 AD (at the behest of Trajan) “ex nihilo”, as UNESCO call it, i.e on empty land where no town/city had ever existed before and prospered greatly over the next 200 years in what seems to have been a cultured and peaceful existance. As such it represents a Roman “ideal city” as far as town planning was concerned – unconstrained by earlier layouts and also, given the relatively flat open site, by geographical limitations. Originally it was of a perfect grid pattern within a near square (though later developments went outside and didn’t entirely follow this). There are theories regarding the orientation of Roman grid towns based on astronomic calculations regarding sunrise on the day of foundation or on the birthday of the founder (Romans had “founding ceremonies” based apparently on earlier Etruscan and possibly Greek ones). This may explain why the main road out of Timgad to/from the nearby Military camp of Lambaesis, sets off at a definite angle to the main axes rather …

I visited Timgad in the summer of 1975, it was more remarkable because I was not expecting this visage in the desert. I had been working in Algeria, and travelled extensively in the littoral country knowing it very well. I had a had visited Tunisia to renew my visa and on a whim decided to take a round about route Constantine to Biskra and Bou Saada and back to Blida. It was the end of a hot summers North african day when Timgad came into sight. I was spell bound and absolutely awestruck by the ruins shimmering in the saturant setting sun. To such an extent that nearly 30 years later I am still awestruck.