Dougga Things to Do

Dougga is located in the West of Tunisia, about 3 or 4 hours away from Sousse.

You shouldn't have a problem to book a tour of the ruins from Sousse or Hammamet - and probably most touristic cities - and you should do it (or go on your own if you please). We were lucky enough to have a private tour, that is, it was just the two of us plus the driver, and we could spend all the time we wanted there, which is not always possible with a bigger group.

Anyhow, it is a very impressive site and one of the things you shouldn't miss if in Tunisia.

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The Mausoleum of Ateban in Dougga, in the valley, is the only surviving Numidian/Punic structure in Tunisia. (Another was recently discovered at Sabratha in Libya.) The monument was almost completely destroyed in 1842, when the British consul in Tunis extracted from it a bilingual inscription on the facade. It was rebuilt by a French archeologist in 1910. The three-story monument, 21m/69ft high, was built about the middle of the A.D. second century for Ateban, a contemporary of Masinissa, son of Jepmatath and grandson of Palu. The bilingual inscription in Punic and Numidian (now in the British Museum) made it possible to decipher the Libyan script devised by the Numidians - an early form of the Tifinagh script which is still used by the Touareg of the Sahara.

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The Arch of Septimius Severus (5m/16ft wide) was erected in A.D. 205 to mark the town's promotion to the status of municipium, which carried with it the right to its own constitution, administration and civic law. Sepitmus Severus was Rome's first African-born emperor. The arch leads into the road from Carthage to Theveste (Tébessa). There's a reconstruction picture of how it would have looked like nearby.

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Adjoining the House of the Trifolium in Dougga is the complex of buildings known as the Baths of the Cyclopes, with vaulted rooms in the basement. On the south side of the complex are the baths proper, in the frigidarium of which was a mosaic of the Cyclopes (now, like the others, in the Bardo National Museum). A feature of the baths is the well preserved public latrine (entered from a side street), with twelve seats on a horseshoe-shaped bench and a drainage system feeding into the town's main drain. This was used in order for one to dip their sponge (which was on a stick) into the water channel in front of them so as wipe their behind. We have a phrase in Britain about grabing the wrong end of the stick which comes from this very scene!

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The Baths of Licinius, or Winter Baths in Dougga, were built around A.D. 260 and rebuilt in the 4th century. So far as the sloping site permitted they were laid out on the usual symmetrical plan. On the north side was the almost exactly square entrance hall, surrounded by a colonnade of twelve columns supporting a "tube vault" of the kind found at Bulla Regia. The walls were faced with marble and the floor was decorated with a mosaic. A small vestibule led into the richly decorated frigidarium (cold room) in the center of the complex. Diametrically opposite the entrance hall was the palaestra, also surrounded by a colonnade. From the frigidarium the bather entered the tepidarium (warm bath) to the north and beyond this the caldarium (hot bath), heated by an under-floor hypocaust. Other rooms included a latrine and the sudatorium (sweat bath).

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To the west of the Arch of Alexander Severus lies the Temple of Juno-Caelestis - the Roman equivalent of the Punic goddess Tanit. Its semicircular layout recalls the crescent moon which was the commonest symbol for Tanit. Built between 222 and 235 by Julius Gabinius and his wife Julia Gabinia Venusta, the peripteral temple is surrounded by a semicircular portico which itself is enclosed by a semicircular wall. The basin for ritual purification lay between the ring wall and a subsidiary building to the east of the temple precinct. On the north side of the temple is an apse, constructed when it was converted into a church.

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No Roman town would be complete without a token arch and Dougga has two. This one is the better preserved of the two, located to the west of the Forum over the city's main western entrance. It was erected between A.D. 222 and 235, probably to celebrate the granting of further privileges to the city.

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To the west of the Capitole and Forum, near the Arch of Alexander Severus, lie the cisterns of Aid el-Hammam. There are 5 in total each 33m/108ft long by 5m/16ft high, with a total capacity of 6,000 cubic meters/1.3million gallons of water.