RUINED CITY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 154, 27 December 1912, Page 7

RUINED CITY

m> DISCOVERED IN AFRICAN WILDERNESS. ty Telegrtpb.—Preu Association.-- Copyright (Received December 27, 8 a.m.) ROME, 26th December. Two military engineers, reconnoitring in a dirigible over the Tripoli desert, discovered a ruined city among the sand I wilderness. , " ! They obtained photographs of imposing ruins and statues, which haVe been identified as belonging to the ruined city $f Sabbatta ( ?Sbeitla). Sbeitla (ancient Sufetuk) is a ruined city of Tunisia., 66 miles south-west of Kairawan. Long buried beneath the sand, this is the most beautiful and extensive of the Roman cities in the re- | gency. It stands at the foot of a, hill by a river, here perennial, but at a short distance beyond lost in the sands. The chief ruin is a rectangular Walled enclosure 238 ft by 198 ft, known as the Hierori, having three small and one large entrance. The gteat gateway is a fine monumental arch in fair preservation, with an inscription to Antoninus Pius. Facing the arch, within the Hieron, their rear walls forming one side of the enclosure, are three temples, connected to one another by arches, and forming one design. The length of tho entire facade is 118 ft. The principal chamber of the central temple, which is of the Composite order, is 44ft long; those of the side temples, in the Corinthian style, are smaller. The walls of the middle temple are ornamented with engaged columns j those of the other buildings with pilasters. The porticos have fallen, and their broken monolithic columns, with fragments of cornices and other masonry, He piled within the enclosure, which is still partly paved. (In 1901 a violent storm further damaged the temples, and forced the gateway out of the perpendicular.) The other ruins include a triumphal arch of Constahtine, a still serviceable bridge, and a square keep or tower of late date. The early history of Sufetula ib preserved only in certain inscriptions. Under Antoninus and Marcus Aut-elius it appears to have been a flourishing city, the district, now desolate, being then very fertile and covered with forests of olives. It was partly rebuilt during the Byzantine occupation, and became a centre of Christianity. At the time of the Arab invasion it was the capital of the ex- Arch Georgius, and outside its walls the battle was fought in which he was slain; his daughter, who is said by the Arab historian to have fought by the aide of her father, became the wife of one of the Arab leaders. The invaders besieged, captured, and sacked Sufetula, and it is not afterwards mentioned in history. It was not until th 6 close of the nineteenth century that the ruins were thoroughly examined by French savants.