In the immediate vicinity of the present-day town of Sbeitla are the excavations of the Roman town of Sufetula.
When we visit the excavations of the Roman city of Sufetula in Tunisia, we immerse ourselves in the past. The well-preserved ruins give us the opportunity to stand in the middle of history and imagine what life might have been like here 2000 years ago.
The highlight is that the excavation site is accessible without fences or barriers and you can really explore it without being restricted. Unfortunately, there are hardly any signs or information.
Isolated traces have already been found from the time of the Punic and Carthaginian empires. Even before the Romans founded the city in the 1st century, there seems to have been a Berber settlement here, which, however, gradually disappeared.
In late antiquity, the city experienced a decline. However, the Byzantines resisted the Muslim-Arab expansion and built several small churches and chapels. One of them even housed a mosaic-decorated baptismal font.
It is always fascinating to see how the history of this place has changed over time.
While I am taking a "bath" in one of the pools, Gerd is approached by a man. He could sell us real coins, he had dug them up here himself. Exciting, but of course we don't accept the offer. After all, we are not simply going to take state property out of the country. And we don't really know what to do with them either.
We are always surprised by the discoveries we make here in Tunisia and are grateful for the "spontaneous inspiration" to visit this country.
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
By the way, we are travelling through Iran. It's possible that we won't be writing posts at all or will be late. We first have to see if it works for us. And whether we can even manage to write down all the fantastic impressions in good time.
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Good morning you two history researchers. 😁
Yes, I also often think about the human past.
What I notice again and again:
How religion divides people and leads to senseless killing, murdering, exterminating.
Then as now. 😢
Not because people believe.
But because some powerful religious princes make sure that people do not accept each other.
It would be very interesting to know how these people really lived back then.
And then I wonder what they will dig up from us in 3000 years.
I wonder if there will be anyone left to dig. 🤷
Now, of course, one could be mean and bury an old mobile phone next to the baptismal font. 😉🤣😂
Have a good trip and thank you for your pictures and thoughts.
Ahhhh....and thank you so much for the camels! 🥰😉😘
A dear hug from Racheli 🤗
Love,
First of all: clearly, you really have to distinguish between faith and religion. For people of faith are probably neither violent nor domineering in the majority. So there would probably be far fewer wars if there were (are?) only believers.
But since there have always been (and still are?) rulers who, as we know from time immemorial, have turned believers into oppressed and slaves, there have been and still are wars over what?
Now, if it were just us women here, I'd say this seems to be a guy thing, but probably men read along here too and I don't want to generalise, of course....
But this ego thing already seems to have real power.
Unfortunately.
Digging up things from our time? I suspect it will be a lot of plastic and data carrier junk. In other words, content-related junk.
Very dear greetings nevertheless: Heike & Gerd