AN ALGERIAN POMPEII.

Evening Post, Volume XLIV, Issue 44, 20 August 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN ALGERIAN POMPEII.

The Temps describes the visit of M. Leon Bourgeois, the French Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, during hia recent tour in Algeria, to the ruins of the Arab city of Titngad, which was built in the first century of the Christian- era and devastated by the Moors in the sixth century, its destruction being completed by successive shocks of earthquake. Timgad is in the province of Constantino, about 16 miles from the ruin of Lambessa, formerly a militiary colony of the Romans and the camp of the famous Third Legion of the Emperor Augustus. Built upon one of the spurs of the Aures mountains, Timgad was a place of fashionable resort like Pompeii, and, like the Italian city, it has preserved the pavements of its streets, with ruts made by the chariot wheels, a forum with a number of ornamental statues, a basilica, a tribunal of commerce, several temples and public halls, a theatre with seats for the spectators, galleries, and entrance places for the public and the actors, fountains, baths, and a covered market with granite tables still in their places. To the south-west of the town rises a temple of colossal dimensions, surrounded by spacious porticos, upon a hill designated by the name of Capitol. This building, dedicated to Jupiter, is now being excavated, and ihe ornamental friezes, the balustrades, the heads of the columns, are already clear of earth, while the fragments of a colossal statue have also been brought to light. There is a broad paved road, quite intact, traversing the city from east to west, with several triumphal arches spanning it, one of which, built by Trajan, with three gateways through it, is still intact. This triumphal way was the road from Lambessa to Tebessa, which possesses the first Christian monastery in the world, built at the close of the fourth century by the deciplines of St. Augustine, and recently excavated by the French Administration of Public Monuments. There is also inTimgad the Byzantine fort or citadel, built in haste by the troops of Solomon, the successor of Belisarius in Africa, out of the debris of the southern part of the city, several basilicas, and various other constructions, which will in due course be excavated. It is hoped that the visit of the Minister of Fine Arts will result in more funds being provided for the work which is being carried on at Timgad and other places in the province of Constantino, which is particularly rich in archaeological remains of the Roman period.