Bulla Regia

Bulla Regia

Entrance to the archaeological site of Bulla Regia
Shown within Tunisia
Location	Tunisia
Region	Jendouba Governorate
Coordinates	36°33′31″N 8°45′14″E / 36.55861°N 8.75389°E / 36.55861; 8.75389
History
Cultures	Berber, Punic, Numidian, Roman, Byzantine
Site notes
Public access	Public tours, museum

Bulla Regia was a

The Punic name of the town appears on its currency as BBʿL (𐤁𐤁𐤏𐤋‬).^[1] This has been suggested to have been a contraction of BT BʿL (𐤁𐤕 𐤁𐤏𐤋‬), meaning "House" or "Temple of Baal".^[2][3]

The name Bulla Regia is

Carthage gained control over the town during the 3rd century BC, when inscriptions reveal that the inhabitants venerated Baal Hammon and buried their dead in urns in the Punic style. A capital from a temple of Tanit is preserved at the site's museum.

Numidian capital

Bulla Regia was part of the territory won for

The Romans assumed direct control in 46 BC, when

Bulla Regia slowly lost importance under Byzantine rule. As elsewhere in the late empire, the local aristocracy found themselves in a position to increase the extent of their houses at the expense of public space: the House of the Fisherman was adapted to link two separate insulae, turning a thoroughfare into a dead end. An earthquake destroyed Bulla Regia, collapsing its first floors into the subterranean floors.

Re-discovery

Drifting sand protected the abandoned sites, which were forgotten until the first excavations were begun in 1906, in part spurred by the destruction of the monumental entrance to the Roman city.

The forum, surrounded by porticoes, was excavated 1949–52. Its public basilica had an apse at each end. As a cathedral, it had a highly unusual cruciform baptismal font inserted in the center of the rear (west end) of its nave.^[5] Its small amphitheater, the subject of a reproach in a sermon of Augustine of Hippo, retains the crispness of its edges and steps because it lay buried until 1960–61.

Museum and archeological site

Bulla Regia is now an archeological site. There is a museum, and underground tours are available.^[6] Restoration work aims to protect the buildings, which are well-preserved due to being largely built underground. Most of the elaborate polychrome mosaics are being conserved in-situ, allowing visitors to see them in their original architectural context. The Roman drainage system has been restored to keep the houses from flooding. ^[7]

Buildings

In the unique domus architecture developed in the city, a ground-level storey, open to the warming winter sun, stood above a subterranean level, built round a two-story atrium. Open-bottomed terracotta bottle-shapes were built into vaulting. Water sprinkled on the floors brought the colors of the mosaics to life while they provided cooling by evaporation.

In the House of the Hunt, the basilica, with an apse at its head, a transept and dependent spaces opening into what would be the nave if it were a church, has been instanced (Thébert) as an example of the conjunction between public architecture and the domus of the ruling class in the fourth century, spaces soon to be Christianized as churches and cathedrals.

The subtle colors and shading and the modelling of three-dimensional forms of the finest mosaics at Bulla Regia are not surpassed by any in North Africa, where the Roman art of mosaic floors reached its fullest development. The mosaic of a haloed Amphitrite (House of Amphitrite) is often illustrated (see image above).

Religion

Bulla Regia was important enough to become a

• Jules Girard (8 July 1921 – 23 March 1950)
• Herbert Bednorz (4 May 1950 – 12 November 1967)
• Titular Archbishop
  Huê
• Auxiliary Bishop of Płock

Bibliography

• García Moreno, Luis A. (2001), De Gerión a César, Memorias del Seminario de Historia Antigua, Vol. IX, Alcala: University of Alcala Press. (in Spanish)
• Head, Barclay; et al. (1911), "Numidia", Historia Numorum (2nd ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 884–887.
• Sola-Solé, Josep María (1980), El Alfabeto Monetario de las Cecas "Libio-Fenices", Biblioteca Universitaria, Vol. I, Puvill. (in Spanish)

Further reading

The excavations at Bulla Regia were published as Les ruines de Bulla Regia, A. Besaouch, R. Hanoune, and Y. Thébert, Rome, 1977.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bulla Regia.

• World Monuments Fund website about Bulla Regia
• Website about Bulla Regia
• Website about Bulla Regia Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Virtual tourist site
• GigaCatholic with titular incumbent biography links