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Timgad
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Seals, your want-to-go list and the year you stood here are kept in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
In AD 100 the Roman emperor Trajan founded the military colony of Thamugadi from nothing near the Aurès mountains in what is now Algeria. Its full name honoured his mother Marcia, his sister Ulpia Marciana and his father. Settled by veterans and colonists, it was a Roman bastion against the Berbers.
Planned for about 15,000 people on a grid, it is one of the best surviving examples of Roman grid planning. A 12-metre arch stands at the west end of the decumanus maximus, with a theatre for 3,500, a library and a temple of Jupiter about the size of the Pantheon in Rome. By the mid-2nd century the town had spread beyond its first walls.
The Vandals sacked the city in the 5th century, and in 539 the Byzantine general Solomon retook it and built a fort to the south. It ceased to be inhabited in the 8th century. Excavations went on almost without a break from 1881 to 1960, and Timgad was inscribed in 1982.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).