Royal Mausoleum of Syphax, Beni Saf · Wikimedia Commons

Royal Mausoleum of Syphax

MausoleumMauretania Caesariensis · Beni Saf, Ain Temouchent Province, AlgeriaBuilt 205 BCE

About

A stepped stone monument crowned a ridge 220 meters above the Tafna valley, overlooking the coast near Siga, capital of the Numidian king Syphax. Tradition attributes the tomb to Syphax himself, the Masaesyli ruler whose shifting alliances in the Second Punic War ended with his capture by Rome in 203 BCE. Its stark, tiered profile echoes the same Numido-Punic architectural tradition later scaled up at Medracen.

What happened here

The tomb is built where the traffic is: on the road out of town, facing the carriageway, close enough to read at walking pace. That is the design brief. Inside there may be a single chamber for one family or niches for dozens, with cremation urns or, increasingly, bodies laid out. Outside there is a portrait, an inscription giving the dead their offices and their years, and often a bench, because visitors come back. The family returns on the anniversary and at the February festival of the dead, brings wine and food, and eats a meal at the graveside. Endowments are left to keep it up and lawsuits follow when they are not honoured. A grand tomb is the last public building a family gets to commission.