Amphitheatre of El Jem
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- This is the third amphitheatre built at Thysdrus; the first, cut into a hill of soft tuff in the 1st century AD, held only about 6,000 spectators.
- With no limestone nearby, it was built of soft dune sandstone from coastal quarries about 30 km away; white when cut, the stone has aged to ochre.
- Its builders measured in Punic cubits of about 50 centimetres, the local masons' traditional unit, rather than in Roman feet.
- Because the sandstone is weak under load, the outer wall is about 4.5 metres thick, giving the building far more solid than void.
- The facade was made up of 64 arcades rising through three storeys, using a different sequence of classical orders from the Colosseum.
- Unusually, its two underground galleries were planned from the start, with hoists that lifted caged animals straight up into the arena.
- No dedicatory inscription has ever been found, so its date is debated, and some scholars think work stopped unfinished after the upheavals of 238.
- According to legend, the Berber queen al-Kahina held out inside the amphitheatre against the Arab armies in the late 7th century.
- Around 1850 the breach opened in 1695 was widened to roughly 30 metres, which is why one side of the ring stands open.
- In 1996 Nike filmed its Good vs Evil football commercial here, with Eric Cantona, Ronaldo, Paolo Maldini and Luís Figo.
Why it is worth it
The amphitheatre of El Jem rises out of a small Tunisian town like something from another scale entirely: a three-storey ring of honey-coloured stone arcades, 36 metres high, looming over low houses and olive country. It was built around AD 238 in the Roman city of Thysdrus, which had grown rich in the second and third centuries on the olive oil trade of the surrounding plains. Its long axis is about 148 metres and its short axis about 122, and it is thought to have seated some 35,000 people — dimensions that put it among the largest amphitheatres the Romans ever built and make it the largest in North Africa.
Unlike the Colosseum, which it is often compared to, El Jem stands on flat ground, with no hillside to carry its seating; the whole weight of the cavea rests on the stone vaults of the structure itself. Much of the interior survives well enough to follow the tiers of seats down to the arena floor. Beneath that floor runs a pair of vaulted underground galleries lined with cells, where animals and fighters waited before the games — one of the most evocative parts of the building, and a place where the machinery of Roman spectacle feels close.
Its later history left its own marks. Through the upheavals of late antiquity and the early medieval centuries the amphitheatre served as a stronghold. In 1695, during a local conflict, the bey Mohamed El Mouradi had a breach made in the walls so that it could no longer be used as a fortress, and the gap is still visible in the ring today. Later it housed a saltpetre works, shops and granaries. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and its arches have served as a film set more than once, including for Monty Python's Life of Brian. In summer it is the stage for the El Jem international festival of symphonic music.
Getting there
The amphitheatre stands in the middle of El Jem and is roughly a five-minute walk from El Jem railway station on the main Tunis–Sfax line, with trains from Tunis, Sousse and Sfax. The nearest airport is Monastir Habib Bourguiba International (MIR), about 51 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Amphitheatre of El Jem is an oval amphitheatre in the modern-day city of El Djem, Tunisia, formerly Thysdrus in the Roman province of Africa. It is listed by UNESCO since 1979 as a World Heritage Site.
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