The Sahara buried this ancient Roman city preserving it for centuries

[Peter1469]

The Sahara buried this ancient Roman city preserving it for centuries

North Africa has some impressive Roman ruins. I visited one in Morocco. This one is further east in modern day Algeria.

It isn’t often that entire cities vanish, but the Roman outpost of Thamugadi did. Founded by the emperor Trajan around A.D, 100, the city, also known as Timgad or Tamugas, was located in the North African province of Mumidia.

Home to veterans of the Third Augustan Legion, Thamugadi flourished for hundreds of years, becoming prosperous and thus an attractive target for raiders. After a Vandal invasion in 430, repeated attacks weakened the city, which never fully recovered and was abandoned during the 700s.



The desert sands swept in and buried Thamugadi. One thousand years would pass before the city received a visit from a team of explorers led by a maverick Scotsman in the 1700s. (See also: This warrior was the best of ancient Rome's 'five good emperors')


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Statesman and scholar

Read the rest at the link and see the Map there (it didn't paste above).

[Common]

Man how cool is that, they are finding some extraordinary things today, eventually we may get the whole story

Amazing photos at the link

[DGUtley]

Thanks Peter!