Double Click the Large You Tube Thumbnail above to see a video of Sabratha
It
had not been our plan to visit the ancient Greek/Roman settlement
Subratha or Sabratha, a hundred kilometers west of Tripoli. But British Airways
had refused to change our tickets so we ended up being
stuck in Libya with a day and night to kill. After
booking into
The Hotel Bab el Bahur we flagged down a taxi and
explained our mission.
We
made good time and the roads were clear. Sabratha,
which has splendid Roman remains, was originally established
as a Carthaginian trading post and harbour and by 400
BC the actual city was growing. The ancient Greeks
had a presence in Sabratha but by the first century
AD the Romans were the dominant culture. Around
the sixth century AD the Byzantine were ruling and the
city was was temporarily taken over by the vandals.
After the Arab invasion of 640AD the city went into
decline. Our driver dropped
us off at the main entrance and we asked him to come
back in two hours. The museum was closed so we made
our way to the main ruins walking through the main car
park, where by the look of large shiny modern cars and
a number of security officials, it appeared there was
a VIP visiting at the same time as us. First
we walked to the theater. This one of the largest
Roman theaters in the world and has been renovated and
re-assembled to its original glory. The tiers of seats
are sufficient for over 5000 thousand spectators.
The walls are adorned with designs in bas relief.
Me
standing next to pillars by the sea
Behind
the main stage, which is over forty yards wide, there
are three stories of galleries re-created from over ninety
original columns. These are made from beautiful
white, black, and pink cipolline marble. These spectacular
columns are highly decorated with grooves and spirals
and adorned with carvings including a lion and a gorgon. There
is also Roman writing on the walls above the tunnels where
the participants would enter the stage
Also
there are carving of seraphim and a
dolphin similar to the carving of the dolphin at the ancient
fish market at Leptis Magna. We left to find
the amphitheatre walking through meadow land and scrub
by the coast. Spring flowers were blooming.
Large Roman columns some standing some fallen litter the
coast. We came across young shepherds and shepherdesses
grazing their sheep and goats. We asked them if
we could take their picture but they were too shy. They were dressed in traditional Bedouin attire,
the girls with bright stripped blankets wrapped around
them. The amphitheatre proved difficult to find.
It was common practice for Roman amphitheatres to be built
away from the main city-centre as they generated
noise that was considered not just anti-social but possibly
insulting to the Gods. The amphitheatres were scenes of
great violence and bloody carnage as distinct from Greek
style theaters where drama and comedies were the main
entertainment. We met a grizzled old Bedouin
or Berber couple grazing their livestock. They were
sitting resting on an old Roman column, possibly part
of the nearby Neptune's Bath complex or the Temple of
Isis and they let us photograph them. They were
dressed in traditional Bedouin clothes. The
woman had a stripped blanket and tattoos.
The
Temple of Isis has had its columns re-erected so one get
an idea of its original size. Eventually a young man took
a break tending his goats and showed us the way to the
amphitheatre. He was dressed in the traditional
attire of teenagers throughout the world: Tee Shirt, trainers
and jeans. We accessed the amphitheatre by entering
a small hidden overgrown gorge. This a a fascinating
area which is, with the exception of part of the
western gate, completely unreconstructed. Flowers
and bushes grow out of the tiered masonry and the whole
place has the feel of discovering a lost city. We
crossed the floor of the arena where there are large
underground chambers. We peered down into them and
realised they were probably the holding pens for animals
and humans who were part of the night's entertainment.
We then returned to the main site. We dropped
by the museum and though it was closed there is some nice
statutory in the courtyard. We moved on to two mausoleums
one of which has only its base left but the other has
been fully reconstructed by Italian archeologists.
The decorative friezes at the top of the columns show
both an Egyptian and Greek influence represented by the
different styles of the lions that have been carved. We
moved on to the centre of the ruin to look at The South
Temple and The Antonine Temple near to the Judicial Basilica.
There is a large forum with granite columns and four massive
columns nearby are the remains of the Temple of Liber
Pater. Other ruins nearby are the Temple of Serapis
and Capitol used by Roman orators.We
walked eastwards towards the shore to the Forum baths
where their remains some excellent hexagonal marble toilets.
I
sat on the Roman toilets and felt moved.
Their
are other bath complexes in Sabratha and Leptis
Magna but these are the best preserved. By now
our two hours was up and we returned to the main gate
to await our driver. We
returned to Tripoli and in the
evening checked out the area around the Dat
al Imad towers before retiring. The
next day before returning to London we visited the docks
and the fish market
Our
next trip was not to be until the following November when
we were to travel to Tobruk to
see the war cemeteries
and other sites in eastern Libya.
