VILLA SILIN

The Roman villa depends on the Antiquités Magna department of antiquities, and it is at the entrance of Leptis Magna that the entrance ticket is stamped to visit Villa Silin. The villa is located on the coast, about kilometres west of Khoms, but the path to access it, which the countryside, is not easy to find. You can be accompanied by a guide from Leptis Magna; usually count 20 DL for the visit of about 1 hour.

We ask our readers to show respect for the site they are going to visit, badly protected. In fact, some tourists, scrupuleux and pressés, do not borrow the small corridors drawn between the mosaics and are these marvels, while raking them from the camera's tehip. All this is harmful to the protection of vestiges.

In the th century, rich Roman landowners lived in this villa facing the sea, entirely decorated with sumptuous mosaics until the gardens. They used large olive groves stretching far into the surrounding hills. The villa was discovered by an Italian archaeologist in the early 1970 s, buried under the sands that preserved it from any degradation. It is organized around a peristyle courtyard, one of the garden of a garden, the tiles of mosaics with different geometric motifs, and the beautiful performances of nilotics scenes with crocodiles.

In front of the court, in the triclinium where the meals were taken in summer, a mosaic illustrates the myth of the king of Thrace Lycurgus, who, having chased Dionysus, attacked the Bacchante Ambrosia. Transformed into vines, the nymph eventually strangle the king. In one of the pieces on the west wing of the villa, a mosaic represents a four-quadriges race (four-horse tanks) in the Amphithéâtre Magna amphitheatre. The winning tank, whose aurige proudly bears the victory of victory, runs against the race. In the next room, the graceful Four Seasons turn round under the genius circle of the Year. In another room, the artist admirably rendered the grace of a néréide with triton, by the sea.

The east wing of the villa comprises the thermal baths and apartments. It will include a mosaic depicting the killing of convicts (surely of the tribe of the Garamantes, who betrayed Dane in his struggle against Leptis in the first century, and whose prisoners were punished at the time of peace between the two cities) by a large white bull excited by the stick of a Roman. These public executions took place in the amphitheatre in mid-day. The thermal baths are particularly well preserved and in the laconicum (steam bath of hot baths, or caldarium) the way in which the heating system operated by hypocauste was used: the heated air from a slave-powered oven (we will see its location outside the villa, behind the thermal baths) took the small brick ducts. In the frigidarium (cold bath), a niche has a mosaic of extreme finesse. Pavement shows the god Poseidon surrounded by marine animals. You will not need to miss the various murals that are the visit.