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Modern photograph, panorama of the Timgad ruins · Wikimedia Commons
Timgad
Numidia · Roman province·Algeria·Founded 100 CE by Trajan
A veterans' colony founded by Trajan for Legio III Augusta. A textbook Roman grid, 17 years old at our snapshot.
Uninhabited since a 7th-century Arab invasion; now a fully excavated, empty UNESCO World Heritage archaeological park in the Aures Mountains near Batna, Algeria.
Excavation history
1765
James Bruce (Scottish explorer) — Rediscovered the ruins of Timgad, though no systematic excavation followed for well over a century.
1880s-1900s
Albert Ballu and Stephane Gsell (French colonial administration) — Led systematic French excavations beginning in the 1880s that uncovered the well-preserved grid-planned Roman colonia, work that continued under French administration until 1960.
Notable finds
Neptune in His Chariot Mosaic
A 3rd-century floor mosaic from Timgad's East Baths showed Neptune brandishing his trident as four sea-horses hauled his chariot through the waves, one of more than eighty mosaics the ruined city surrendered to its site museum.
Timgad Museum, Algeria
Mosaic of the Sea Monsters
Excavators lifted this mosaic of coiling marine creatures from a Timgad bath building and mounted it on the museum wall, part of a haul of more than eighty Roman mosaics recovered at the site.
Timgad Museum, Algeria
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Library Donation Inscription
A Latin inscription recovered from Timgad's ruined library records that Senator Marcus Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus willed the city 400,000 sesterces to build it, the very text that let excavators in 1906 finally identify the unlabeled building as a public library.
In situ, Timgad archaeological site, Algeria
Artemis and Actaeon Mosaic
A mosaic pulled from Timgad's baths caught the moment Actaeon sprouted stag's antlers after spying on Artemis at her bath, moments before his own hounds turned on him.
Timgad Museum, Algeria
Venus on a Marine Centaur Mosaic
A Timgad townhouse floor depicted Venus riding sidesaddle on the back of a marine centaur, one of the mythological mosaics that now fill the walls of the Timgad Museum alongside the site's Neptune and Artemis panels.
Timgad Museum, Algeria
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