Saturday, October 10th.
We left our hotel at 8 by coach on a four hour drive east through Algeria and the rolling hills of the Atlas Mountains, past olive groves, vineyards and wheat fields. As we left the coast we entered drier more barren landscapes. Our destination, Djemila - "beautiful" in Arabic - sits 900 metres above sea level, where Roman engineers faced the challenge of adapting their classical urban planning, the flat, grid-pattern Roman cities of the plains, to mountainous terrain. The result, dating from the 1st century CE, is amazing in its ingenuity. Djemila flows with the contours of the landscape. Our first stop was in the museum, where our local female guide, Imen, explained the site to us using a model of the whole complex. In the three rooms of the museum the walls were lined with fabulous mosaics that the Romans had created to decorate the walls and floors of the temples and other important buildings. The mosaics and sculptures reveal daily life in this mountain outpost. Intricate floor designs depicting hunting scenes, mythological figures, and geometric patterns showcase the wealth and sophistication of Roman North Africa. These aren’t mere decorative elements - they’re windows into a society where African, Mediterranean, and Roman influences created something entirely new. Imen explained the history of Djemila which sits 90 kms from the sea and at a crossroad between other Roman settlements in Algeria and Tunisia. It was amazing to think as I walked the streets where toga-clad citizens once strolled 2000 years ago. The site's temples, basilicas, and triumphal arches have been damaged over time and many are in ruin. I have seem Roman sites with more intact structures (Palmyra in Syria and Jerash in Jordan to name two), but never a site as large as this one, or in such a beautiful hilly environ. It was mind boggling to think of the quarrying of the rock and marble and how it was cut and transported to this site from areas many kilometres away. And then how the columns and temples were constructed. We had a great day exploring the site before boarding the coach and driving two hours to the city of Constantine where we will stay at the Novotel Hotel for the next two nights.
