Roman amphitheatre of El Jem
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. How many people have stood at a site or want to go will be shown once enough people use the app.
Seals, your want-to-go list and the year you stood here are kept in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
El Jem is a small town on a plain in central Tunisia, the Roman Thysdrus in the province of Africa. Around 238 an amphitheatre modelled on the Colosseum in Rome was built here. Its axes measure 148 m and 122 m, and it is thought to have seated about 35,000 spectators.
Unlike the many amphitheatres set against a hillside, it stands free on flat ground, built of stone blocks, with three tiers of arcades carrying Corinthian and composite columns. It is the third amphitheatre built on the same spot.
In the Middle Ages it served as a fortress where the population took shelter from the Vandals in 430 and the Arabs in 647. In 1695 Mohamed Bey El Mouradi broke an opening in one wall to end the resistance of his brother Ali Bey's followers gathered inside, and around 1850 the breach was widened to about 30 m. The amphitheatre was inscribed in 1979.
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).