Tomb of Massinissa
About
A 30-meter tower rises on a square plan outside El Khroub, near ancient Cirta, built in the second half of the 2nd century BCE by Greek and Carthaginian masons working for the Numidian court. Tradition names it for King Massinissa, though the balance of evidence points to his son and successor Micipsa as the actual occupant. Its mixed Greco-Punic style reflects the cosmopolitan workforce Numidian kings employed at their capital. It still stood as a visible landmark under Roman rule.
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
Nearby
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