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Sbeitla

Kasserine, Tunisia
Sbeïtla, the site of Sufetula
 
The ancient site of Sufetula is partly integrated into the town of Sbeïtla which, nearly a millennium and a half later, has succeeded it as one of the main cities of the Upper Steppe.
Although the name Sufetula indicates a much earlier foundation, the remains found on the site do not go back higher than the first century after J.C.
The city seems to have known under Septimius Severus (2nd - 3rd century) an era of great prosperity that continued until under Diocletian (285 - 305). It is from this period that date the main buildings still visible: houses, forum, temples, baths, triumphal door, theater, etc.
In the absence of inscriptions to inform us about the various stages of the past of the city, the discovery of late vestiges, the lower Empire or the vandal and Byzantine periods, reflects a great vitality of the Christian community in these walls which became preponderant on the eve of the Arab conquest, in 647, it ended the membership of Africa in the Christian world and signed its attachment to the Islamic empire, after the defeat Patrice Gregoire who reigned over a kingdom that had taken his distance from Constantinople, which had Sufetula as capital instead of Carthage.
The Sufetula site is the first to have dynamic lighting and full signage.

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