ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF THUBURBO MAJUS

The site of Thuburbo Majus is located on the hillside, in the heart of a natural amphitheater open to the West. The city was immense and extended on nearly 40 hectares. Only one sixth of the surface of Thuburbo Majus was the object of excavations... really incomplete! Magnificent mosaics and fragments of a colossal statue of Jupiter were exhumed and are today deposited in the museum of Bardo. From these unfinished excavations, in spite of important vestiges, in particular those of the Capitol, a great part of the immense site remains to be cleared. Thuburbo Majus remains one of the most beautiful archaeological sites of Tunisia.

Located next to the forum, the capitol, the most important of Africa, is raised compared to the latter and one reaches it by a broad staircase. We can still admire four of the six columns, almost 9 meters high, which made the majesty of this monument dedicated to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. The capitol also includes the temple of Peace, intended to attract the protection of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.

The forum : essential place of the political and economic life of the city, the forum of Thuburbo Majus is of a particular size with its 2 400 square meters. It dates from the end of the IInd century.

The market and the temple of Mercury : in the south-west of the forum are the market and the temple of the god of trade. Dating from the beginning of the 2nd century, they lead to the ruins of a residential area where, among the Roman constructions, traces of Byzantine and Vandal architecture can be distinguished.

Palestra of the Petronii: this set of columns, which owes its originality to its black marble veined with yellow, was a gymnasium, built in 225 AD to host wrestling and boxing. It bears the name of the family that donated it to the city.

The particularity of the city of Thuburbo Majus was the presence of two thermal baths, due to the summer drying up of the well supplying the winter baths. The summer baths are located lower on the hill, west of the palestra, have an area of 2 800 square meters. One discovered there mosaics, which came, them also, to enrich the collection of the museum of Bardo. While continuing towards the southeast, after the market, one discovers the monument of the winter baths which extends on 1 600 square meters. It is decorated with veined marble columns and includes about twenty rooms. The mosaic grounds are today also with the museum of Bardo.