Architectural Geology of Tunisia, Part 1: All the World's a Stage | Roman Theater, Dougga (Second Century AD)
(Updated July 25, 2024)
Taken from the cheap seats. Beyond its proscenium and colonnade stretches a landscape of scattered olive (Olea europaea) groves, low ridges, and wide valleys.
The towerlike structure in the nearest stand of olive trees is the famous Numidian Mausoleum of Ateban, constructed in the second century BC. Next to it eventually rose the Africo-Roman provincial town that today is reputedly the best preserved site of that era in North Africa. But its origins lie much farther back, centuries before the Romans held sway here.
The stone most commonly used in the theater and Dougga's other structures is Eocene nummulitic limestone, locally quarried, of the El Garia Formation.
Dougga lies in Tunisia's Diapir Zone, where domelike or mushroom-shaped bodies of salt and other Triassic evaporites have pushed their way up to the surface to contort younger, overlying strata.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Architectural Geology of Tunisia album.
Architectural Geology of Tunisia, Part 1: All the World's a Stage | Roman Theater, Dougga (Second Century AD)
(Updated July 25, 2024)
Taken from the cheap seats. Beyond its proscenium and colonnade stretches a landscape of scattered olive (Olea europaea) groves, low ridges, and wide valleys.
The towerlike structure in the nearest stand of olive trees is the famous Numidian Mausoleum of Ateban, constructed in the second century BC. Next to it eventually rose the Africo-Roman provincial town that today is reputedly the best preserved site of that era in North Africa. But its origins lie much farther back, centuries before the Romans held sway here.
The stone most commonly used in the theater and Dougga's other structures is Eocene nummulitic limestone, locally quarried, of the El Garia Formation.
Dougga lies in Tunisia's Diapir Zone, where domelike or mushroom-shaped bodies of salt and other Triassic evaporites have pushed their way up to the surface to contort younger, overlying strata.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Architectural Geology of Tunisia album.