THUGGA

modern Dougga the best-preserved ancient Roman city in modern Tunisia, located near modern Tabursuq, west of the ancient road between Carthage and Theveste (modern Tbessa, Algeria). Thugga's most notable pre-Roman ruin is a 2nd-century-BC mausoleum, built in honour of a Numidian prince. A three-storied building topped by a pyramid, the mausoleum contained a bilingual Phoenician and Numidian inscription and represented a fusion of the Egyptian pyramidal funerary building and the Hellenistic Greek temple. It was probably an ancestor of the tower tombs with slender pyramids that were characteristic of Roman Africa. Thugga was made a municipium (a community with partial rights of Roman citizenship) by the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (reigned AD 193211), and an arch erected in his honour is one of the outstanding Roman remains. Other important buildings dating to Roman times include a forum, baths, villas, temples, an aqueduct, and a theatre.