We must have visited five different sites of Roman ruins in Algeria and Tunisia. We were told that north Africa has the best Roman ruins of anywhere in the world. I’m sure that is because other countries, like Italy, built right over the older Roman towns and villages. In north Africa, they often went unoccupied and many are still the same way today.

The Roman ruins at Djemila are considered one of the best preserved in all of north Africa. Djemila is one of three Roman ruins sites in Algeria that are UNESCO world heritage sites. It was founded in the 1st century AD as a Roman military garrison and was named Cuicul. It sits on a high plateau at an altitude of 3,000 feet and overlooks two rivers. It’s also cooler than most of northern Algeria.

The Djemila site started as a military garrison but the town later developed into a trading center that flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries when more than 20,000 people lived here. Christianity reached Cuicul in the 4th century and the town expanded further. But then slowly, after the fall of the Roman Empire around the 5th and 6th centuries and the Arabic invasion arrived in this area of Africa, Cuicul was abandoned. I found it interesting that the Arabs renamed Cuicul to Djemila (which means Beautiful in Arabic) but they never reoccupied the town.

The first photo was an overview photo. This only represents a small portion of the site but you can see it’s extensive.

The next photo is the Temple of Gens Septimia.

I believe that the next photo is the main road in Djemila.

The Roman theater is in the fourth photo and we were told that it could hold 3,000 people.

The Djemila museum had many of the mosaic floors from the town. The mosaics have been put up on walls in the museum for display and protection purposes. The museum also has statues and other artifacts but the mosaics were the most impressive displays. The floors in Djemila were truly beautiful back in the day.