Leptis's big claim to fame as a Roman city is producing the 'cruel African' Emperor Septimius Severus. This is an arch erected at the major crossroads in his honour.
And a close-up of some of the detail of the arch - couple of thousand years old, remember.
This photo is back down the other road of the crossroads. It shows how much is still covered - on either side of this road, are buried homes and streets. It's sad to think of the city gradually being covered by sand, the last inhabitants bricking up doors and laneways trying to keep the sand out of the bit of the city still alive.
One of the major structures of Leptis, the public baths. In there were covered and open-air communal toilets, hot and cold baths, steam rooms etc.
This is the old forum. You can see this part has not been re-constructed yet (probably won't be, given the size of the task). We're standing on top of a temple to take this photo. We ate lunch up there too.
Scattered throughout the fragments are dozens or more of these heads - I call them medusa heads, but I think they are actually portraits of a goddess for luck (no Lonely Planet again this week, and I've forgotten what our guide told us).
Hercules was one of the patrons/mascots of the city. Here he is wrestling the lion in one of his tasks.
Griffins are also common.
Off near the ocean are these pillars - once they lined arcades in a typically impressive Roman fashion; during various years of European control of this area, pillars like these ones were shipped off to France, Italy, etc and can now be seen in such places as Versailles. These ones knocked down and dragged to the beach but no ship could be found to move them; here they lie a few hundred years later as an example of colonial pillaging.
Next week, the theatre, the hunting baths, the market, and the amphitheatre. And then I'm hoping I can post some everyday photos rather than constant touristy shots so you can see what life is like here.
2 comments:
nice pictures, thank you for this intresting article
The Abassador's two bob worth;
Leptis was stunning, and amazingly the drive was fairly calm, good wide roads and plenty of room for those that wanted to drive in a suicidal fashion to overtake us.
We went to the fish market again last Friday to show some visiting friends the cool experience that is this place. You go there, browse amongst all the various fish mongers, choose your seafood (heaps of varieties of fish, plus squid, prawns, octapus), then tell them which restaurant you want to eat it in. You then just wander off to your restaurant (our regular is a ship shaped one that protrudes into the sea). The guys then clean your fish, bring it to the restaurant you told them you were going to (or mimed in my case - there's a reason we go to the one shaped like a boat) and they cook it up for you. Absolutely brilliant. This style of eating would be popular anywhere in the world I think.
Unfortunately our weekend ended not so well. One of my work colleagues dog died from eating poison. We think it was accidental, in that the dog ate pesticide sprayed grass. I was over there for awhile and he's got a big job ahead 'untraumatising' his kids - it was not a painless death. When this kind of stuff happens you realise where you are. You can't just look up a vet in the phone book and rush there, what with no phone book, street signs, or numbers. Someone did know a mobile number for a vet and he did get out to the house as fast as possible, but again you need to meet him somewhere that you both know first so you can then show him where the house is (ie it takes more than an hour or so).
Well, hopefully next weekend is a little less depressing.
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