Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

When Rome con­quered Carthage in the Third Punic War (149–146 BC), the Repub­lic renamed the region Africa, for Afri, a word the Berbers used for local peo­ple in present-day Tunisia. (The Ara­bic word for the region was Ifriqiya.) There­after would the Roman Empire have a strong­hold in North Africa: Carthage, the cap­i­tal of the African Province under Julius and Augus­tus Cae­sar and their suc­ces­sors. The province thrived. Sec­ond only to the city of Carthage in the region, the city of Thys­drus was an impor­tant cen­ter of olive oil pro­duc­tion and the home­town of Roman Emper­or Sep­ti­m­ius Severus, who bestowed impe­r­i­al favor upon it, grant­i­ng par­tial Roman cit­i­zen­ship to its inhab­i­tants.

In 238 AD, con­struc­tion began on an amphithe­ater in Thys­drus that would rival its largest cousins in Rome, the famed Amphithe­ater of El Jem. “Designed to seat a whop­ping crowd of 35,000 peo­ple,” writes Atlas Obscu­ra, El Jem was list­ed as a UNESCO World Her­itage site in 1979. Built entire­ly of stone blocks, the mas­sive the­ater was “mod­eled on the Col­i­se­um of Rome,” notes UNESCO, “with­out being an exact copy of the Fla­vian con­struc­tion…. Its facade com­pris­es three lev­els of arcades of Corinthi­an or com­pos­ite style. Inside, the mon­u­ment has con­served most of the sup­port­ing infra­struc­ture for the tiered seat­ing. The wall of the podi­um, the are­na and the under­ground pas­sages are prac­ti­cal­ly intact.”

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Although the small city of El Jem hard­ly fea­tures on tours of the clas­si­cal past, it was, in the time of the Amphitheater’s con­struc­tion, a promi­nent site of strug­gle for con­trol over the Empire. The year 238 “was par­tic­u­lar­ly tumul­tuous,” Atlas Obscu­ra explains, due to a “revolt by the pop­u­la­tion of Thys­drus (El Jem), who opposed the enor­mous tax­a­tion amounts being levied by the Emper­or Maximinus’s local procu­ra­tor.” A riot of 50,000 peo­ple led to the ascen­sion of Gor­dian I, who ruled for 21 days dur­ing the “Year of the Six Emper­ors,” when “in just one year, six dif­fer­ent peo­ple were pro­claimed Emper­ors of Rome.”

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

From such fraught begin­nings, the mas­sive stone struc­ture of the El Jem Amphithe­ater went on to serve as a fortress dur­ing inva­sions of Van­dals and Arabs in the 5th-7th cen­turies. A thou­sand years after the Islam­ic con­quest, El Jem became a fortress dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tions of Tunis. Lat­er cen­turies saw the amphithe­ater used for salt­pe­tre man­u­fac­ture, grain stor­age, and mar­ket stalls.

Despite hun­dreds of years of human activ­i­ty, in vio­lent upheavals and every­day busi­ness, El Jem remains one of the best pre­served Roman ruins in the world and one of the largest out­door the­aters ever con­struct­ed. More impor­tant­ly, it marks the site of one of North Africa’s first impe­r­i­al occu­pa­tions, one that would des­ig­nate a region — and even­tu­al­ly a con­ti­nent with a dizzy­ing­ly diverse mix of peo­ples — as “African.”

via @WassilDZ

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Explore the Ruins of Tim­gad, the “African Pom­peii” Exca­vat­ed from the Sands of Alge­ria

Archae­ol­o­gists Dis­cov­er an Ancient Roman Snack Bar in the Ruins of Pom­peii

A Vir­tu­al Tour of Ancient Rome, Cir­ca 320 CE: Explore Stun­ning Recre­ations of The Forum, Colos­se­um and Oth­er Mon­u­ments

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

We can’t regard the ruins of Pom­peii, how­ev­er unusu­al­ly well-pre­served they are, with­out try­ing to imag­ine what the place looked like before 79 AD. It was in that year, of course, that Mount Vesu­vius erupt­ed, entomb­ing the ancient Roman city in ash and pumice. The exhumed Pom­peii has taught mod­ern human­i­ty a great deal about first-cen­tu­ry urban plan­ning as prac­ticed by the Roman Empire. But it’s one thing to walk the paths Pom­pei­ians walked, and quite anoth­er to see the built envi­ron­ment that they must have seen. The lat­ter expe­ri­ence is avail­able in the eigh­teen-minute video above, which uses com­put­er graph­ics to cre­ate a tour of a rebuilt Pom­peii.

This pro­duc­tion, in fact, pro­vides views of Pom­peii that Pom­pei­ians them­selves could nev­er have seen, includ­ing drone-like flights along its streets and around its famous struc­tures like the Tem­ple of Apol­lo, the Basil­i­ca, and the Forum. But even more than its grand pub­lic build­ings, the city’s pri­vate dwellings — many of them grand in their own way — have influ­enced the way we’ve built in recent cen­turies.

“With their unmis­tak­able style, they have inspired archi­tects of all times,” says the video’s nar­ra­tor. Even as urban­iza­tion reduced the size of Pom­pei­ian hous­es, they gained “rich­ness in dec­o­ra­tions,” reflect­ing the sen­si­bil­i­ty of the local cul­ture.

“Tem­ples, basil­i­cas, spas, hous­es, and a refined, high-lev­el lifestyle make Pom­peii one of the most famous cities of the Roman Empire of the first cen­tu­ry,” says the nar­ra­tor. “All of this, how­ev­er, is about to end abrupt­ly.” We all know what hap­pened next, but the extent of the destruc­tion wrought by Mount Vesu­vius takes a vivid form in the video just above, which com­pares its own CGI recon­struc­tions of these same build­ings to the ruins of today. In its time, Pom­pei­i’s refine­ment made it a well-known city, and some­thing of a show­case of Roman civ­i­liza­tion. But near­ly two mil­len­nia after its destruc­tion, it has become much more famous as a sym­bol of civ­i­liza­tion itself: its sur­pris­ing con­ti­nu­ity, but also its decep­tive fragili­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Destruc­tion of Pom­peii by Mount Vesu­vius, Re-Cre­at­ed with Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion (79 AD)

How the Sur­vivors of Pom­peii Escaped Mount Vesu­vius’ Dead­ly Erup­tion: A TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion Tells the Sto­ry

See the Expan­sive Ruins of Pom­peii Like You’ve Nev­er Seen Them Before: Through the Eyes of a Drone

High-Res­o­lu­tion Walk­ing Tours of Italy’s Most His­toric Places: The Colos­se­um, Pom­peii, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca & More

Archae­ol­o­gists Dis­cov­er an Ancient Roman Snack Bar in the Ruins of Pom­peii

How Ancient Scrolls, Charred by the Erup­tion of Mount Vesu­vius in 79 AD, Are Now Being Read by Par­ti­cle Accel­er­a­tors, 3D Mod­el­ing & Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Ancient Greeks did not live among ruins. This is, of course, an obvi­ous truth, but one we run the risk of for­get­ting if we watch too many his­tor­i­cal fan­tasies set in their time and place as pop­u­lar­ly imag­ined. That West­ern civ­i­liza­tion as we know it today came to know Ancient Greece through the rav­aged built envi­ron­ments left behind has col­ored its mod­ern-day per­cep­tion — or, rather drained it of col­or. In recent years, a big deal has been made about the find­ing that Ancient Greek stat­ues weren’t orig­i­nal­ly pure white, but paint­ed in bright hues that fad­ed away over the cen­turies. What does that imply for the rest of the place?

We don’t have a time machine in which to trav­el back to Ancient Greece and have a look around. We do, how­ev­er, have the dig­i­tal recon­struc­tions of artist Ádám Németh. “My archae­o­log­i­cal ren­der­ings are accu­rate to the time peri­od, due to exten­sive research on ref­er­ences and reviews of sources found online, in libraries and in muse­ums, and also ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with archae­ol­o­gists,” he writes.

“My main goal, through recon­struc­tions, is to make his­to­ry inter­est­ing and acces­si­ble for every­body.” Even those more or less igno­rant of the ancient world can take a glance at his images of an intact and col­or­ful Tem­ple of Hadri­an, Curetes Street, and Foun­tain of Tra­jan.

All of these sites were locat­ed in the Ancient Greek city of Eph­esus, now a part of Turkey. Though it does­n’t draw quite the num­bers of, say, Hagia Sophia, Eph­esus stands nev­er­the­less as a pil­lar of Turk­ish tourism. Indeed, you can go there and exam­ine its actu­al pil­lars, none of which have come through the ages stand­ing any­thing like as might­i­ly Németh depicts them. Com­par­isons post­ed by Mari­na Ama­r­al on Twit­ter put for­mer glo­ry along­side cur­rent ruin, though even the Tem­ple of Hadri­an, Curetes Street, and the Foun­tain of Tra­jan as they are today have been pieced togeth­er into a some­what more com­plete state than that in which they were redis­cov­ered. Even real antiq­ui­ty, in oth­er words, is to some degree a recon­struc­tion. See more of Németh’s recon­struc­tions here.

via Mari­na Ama­r­al

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Explore Ancient Athens 3D, a Dig­i­tal Recon­struc­tion of the Greek City-State at the Height of Its Influ­ence

How Ancient Greek Stat­ues Real­ly Looked: Research Reveals Their Bold, Bright Col­ors and Pat­terns

Watch an Accu­rate Recon­struc­tion of the World’s Old­est Com­put­er, the 2,200 Year-Old Antikythera Mech­a­nism, from Start to Fin­ish

Watch Art on Ancient Greek Vas­es Come to Life with 21st Cen­tu­ry Ani­ma­tion

What Did Ancient Greek Music Sound Like?: Lis­ten to a Recon­struc­tion That’s ‘100% Accu­rate’

Watch Ancient Ruins Get Restored to their Glo­ri­ous Orig­i­nal State with Ani­mat­ed GIFs: The Tem­ple of Jupiter, Lux­or Tem­ple & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.