Medracen
About
Numidian kings raised this circular royal tomb near Batna in the 3rd century BCE, ringing its drum with sixty engaged Doric columns beneath an Egyptian-style cornice. Its exact occupant is unknown, though historians link it to the Numidian king Massinissa or one of his Massylian predecessors — either way, its tumulus form and scale mark it as North Africa's oldest surviving royal mausoleum. It still stood as a recognizable landmark under Roman rule in the province of Africa two centuries later. Its diameter runs about 59 meters.
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.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →