Trajan’s Kiosk, or Pharaoh’s Bed (summer house?) as known to the locals, is a hypaethral (non-roofed) temple that is located nowadays along with the entire temple complex of Philae on Agilkia Island in the reservoir of the Old Aswan Dam on River Nile, southern (ancient Upper) Egypt.
The temple is attributed to Roman emperor Trajan (98 – 117 AD), depicted as Pharaoh on some interior reliefs(1), but a good part of the structure was apparently already built during the reign of Augustus around a century or even more earlier.
Standing about 16m high, as well as 20m long and 15m wide, it originally served as a prelude to the Philae temple complex on the namesake island before it was all relocated to its current place so as to be saved from the rising waters of the Nile due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s.
Sockets within the structure’s architraves suggest that it was probably timber-roofed shaping a slight vault in ancient times. It presents a rectangular room encompassed with a screening wall bound together by fourteen columns that feature lotus-shaped capitals in a 4 x 5 pattern, with entrances on the eastern and western side.
Dougga or Thugga (Punic and Lybico-Berber TBGG) was a small ancient town located on an elevated plateau out in the countryside commanding the valley of Oued Khalled below near Téboursouk in what is nowadays northern Tunisia, regarded as the best preserved Roman small town in north Africa.
Name and foundation
The deep past of the town is not quite that clear but was apparently founded around the 6th century BC likely by the Punics (western Phoenicians) under the name TBGG (meaning something like ‘on the top level’), probably drawing on a Berber word, that signified its naturally strong defensive setting.
It was adopted as Thugga, apparently pronounced as ‘tuga,’ in Latin when the Romans later came along to take command where the current Berber form for it is either Dugga, where the English variation apparently comes from, or Tugga.
Could Thugga be the city of Tocae?
Some historians identify Thugga with the ancient city of Tocae, portrayed as “of beautiful grandeur” by Diodorus of Cicily, that was captured by a force of tyrant Agathocles of Syracuse in his campaigns in north Africa during extended warfare against Carthage towards the late 4th century BC.
All the same, Tocae feels like a Latin name of plural form indicating a group of settlements/districts under it that can hardly be met by small Thugga, therefore that suggestion looks quite shaky.
Numidian or Punic town?
A temple (built 139 BC) dedicated to king Masinissa, who followed largely pro-Roman policies, beneath the later Roman forum spells a Numidian presence from the late third century BC on although the discovery of both Libyan and neo-Punic inscriptions has posed questions over the extent thereof.
For that matter, Punic shophets (magistrates) appear to have remained in place and function well into the Roman era in several cities and towns, Thugga included, which indicates that Punic presence and influence didn’t cease after the fall of Carthage.
The Punic mark on the town is further underlined by a sanctuary dedicated to Ba’al Hammon, the supreme god of Carthage and the Punic, while the bilingual Numidian and Libyco-Punic inscription found in the notable Mausoleum of Atban substantially helped decipher the Numidian alphabet.
(Roman) fortifications
Defence of the town was bolstered up by the Romans in the shape of the ridge of the Fossa Regia (or Fosse Scipio), the initial part of the Limes Africanus (Roman fortified southern borders) constructed in 146 BC, to the east albeit its principal purpose was to stake out the lands of the newly founded Roman province against those of the ally Kingdom of Numidia.
Recent archaeological findings have also toppled earlier theories that the Numidian town and the Roman settlement in the area were separate, in fact they sort of overlapped, and that the surrounding walls were Numidian whereas they were actually constructed by the Romans during late antiquity.
Roman era
Once the Romans took over, the town was granted indigenous status but soon received an adjacent community (pagus) of Roman colonists under separate authorities apiece.
Yet, the two gradually integrated and during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (second century AD) Thugga was granted Roman Law that saw shophets obtain Roman citizenship outright and citizens similar rights.
That said, it was early next century (205 AD) under the reign of emperor Septimius Severus that the two communities merged into a single municipality, as well as given latitude from Carthage’s jurisdiction, before Thugga eventually obtained status of a Roman colony itself under emperor Gallienus decades later.
Further assets that surfaced in the town were the Capitol, the Roman Theatre (apparently built between 168 and 169 AD) as well as the temples of Saturn and June Caelestis that convey the flourish of the Roman time.
The Roman theatre
The well preserved ancient theatre of Thugga was built by the Romans between 168 and 169 AD, commissioned by Marcius Quadratus, and lay on the eastern side of the small but elegant town, facing south.
Despite a relatively small local population (roughly 5000 people), the theatre boasted a capacity of over 3500 spectators and remains operable even in our days hosting the yearly local international festival.
This is the arresting Capitoline Hill of the ancient affluent Roman town of Sbeitla, or Sufetula, that was likely founded during the reign of emperor Vespacian (69-79 AD), originally a fort on the Limes Africanus (southern borders), and stood in what is nowadays north central Tynisia.
The temples of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill of Sbeitla
The Capitol accommodated separate temples of all three Minerva, Juno and Jupiter, the three major deities of ancient Rome, and featured a forum that is one of the best preserved worldwide today.
Its name is apparently Berber (Sbitla or Seftula) in origin, the etymology unknown, as these parts were inhabited by nomadic tribes before the Romans arrived though Punic (western Phoenicians) presence may have been likely, as the discovery of Punic stelae suggests, in between too.
Sbeitla appears to have prospered especially during the second century AD through the olive industry, facilitated by the climate of the region, but later declined during the watershed of the Roman Empire and the fall of its western part.
The Triumphal Arch of the Tetrarchy (or Diocletian), constructed in the very late third century AD, at Sbeilta (Sufetula)
It fell in the hands of the Vandals around 430 AD and was reclaimed by the Eastern Romans (not ‘Byzantines,’ there was never such a thing) about a century later to enjoy a revival but a thorough defeat of the latter by the Arabs of the Rashidun Caliphate in the fields outside the town, the Battle of Sufetula (647 AD), marked the effective end of Roman rule in the region.
Breaking through History 