The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-12-26
AFRICAN POMPE|I
 IS EXCAVATED 1imgad Was Dead for Many
 Centuries UNDER DESERT SANDS Was at One Time an Important Roman City Founded By TraJan at Entrance of Defiles of
 the Aures.
UNDER DESERT SANDS
Rene Faace in L'Illustration.

l Rene Faace in L'Illustration.
 Dead for many centuries, it's site for
 gotten and It's name preserved only In
 certain ancient writings, Timgad has
 shaken off the mantle of sand that en- ! tirely covered 1t and come forth once
 more into the Algerian sunshine. To NJ.
 Albert Ballu director of the Service des
 Monuments Historiaues. we owe the ex- i cavation of this ancient Thamugadi, the
 important Roman city founded by Ira
 jan at the entrance to the defiles of the
 Aures. In less than 20 years Timgad has been exhumed, and now remains to un- earth the suburbs that stretched away to-
 ward Tebessa. Mascula and Lambese.
 The last campaign of digging uncovered
 the extension of the Triumphal avenue l along an extent of nearly 700 feet. ana that of the Decumanus-M Maximum-Est till
 a monumental arch was reached that ! resembles the beautiful gate Of Lam
 bese. The fiuted Corinthian columns, the i cornices, the frieze and the entire en-
 tablature lay scattered about on the
 ground; an inscription informs us that
 the arch dates from III, A. D. The slabs l of the pavement still show the deep ruts
 worn by chariot wheels in the days of
 Marcus Aurelius.
 Other highways were discovered out
 side the city walls, bordered with little
 shops, with workrooms and workmens
 lodgings in the rear as well as the shop
 keepers own abodes. Here the country people could make purchases at once i without entering the city. Soldiers from
 the August-n Third Legion used to con l gregateh ere. These suburban d1strlcts
 were bustling with Activity
 Among mediocre dwellings rose certain 1 larger, more luxurious houses. with paved yestfbules at the front and porticoes
 around the outside. Huge square basins I occupied the middle of these buildings, ] and the rooms opened upon atriums paved with marble mosaics.
 The principal event of the campaign was the excavation of the great Timgad monastery The diggings of the preced- ing years had unearthed the basilica and several contiguous buildings The work is finished now. We see the long align ment of galleries and cells, the common rooms, the lavatory and laundry and the hexagonal baptistry with its central tank, which was reached by three steps sheathed in mosaics. Extensive additions to the abbey show how the community grew and prospered-
 And this magnificent Christian edfice. 530 feet long by 230 broad. disappeared one day like all the pagan monuments of Timgad, when the barbaric invaders swooped down from the Aures. cem- etery was established on the site, and 1t was necessary to remove the tombs in order to reach the monastery pavements below. And they are worth all the toll 1t takes to recover them. They are adorned with zigzags. chisms, laurel leaves and panels in bright and varied colors.
 Still more remarkable are those that M. nall arad fr, ftun xxffh the city. One of these mosacs repre- sents a nude sea goddess dressing her hair. Two genii likewise nude, bear her aloft upon seashell. Dolphins gambol about her. The background of the pie ture consists of red drapery. The other mosaics framed in acanthus leaves, ten drills and volutes, with birds fitting among them shows us another nude goddess, in the midst of the waves. seated upon a Triton's tail; she holds up her tresses with her hand; light, filmy veil floats i above her head.
 No one knows what the next digging will bring forth. Has Timgad yielded up her last secret? Perhaps inscriptions will enable scholars to write her history though I fear that it will remain shroud- ed in mystery for a long time to come. Still. I confess that this absence of de- tdlis, tfilS ldck or knOWleQSe, give added charm to the dead city.
 When last I saw Timgad, a cold mist covered the treeless plateau Not a house was to be seen as we followed the road from Lambese. 1 climbed the first foot hills of the Aures, whose summits were barely visible along the horizon. Poor farms. a dismal green, were lost among the brush. Oh, but the landscape looked gloomy
 fnA mt stat
 pale ray Of light tinted the mountain background a delicate purple. The air had rosy transparency when the whole city came before me, gently outlined l along the slope of hill. Its arches of triumph, it's columns and pilasters, and l the broken walls of its houses and shops and temples lay ranged along broad ave- nues. In the center, the symmetrical ] lines of the forum made ! starting place for paved streets leading to the theatre
 and the baths. EurtheE on was the l jumbled mass of a Byzantine fort. Around this tangle of ruins were still other ruins foundations rising from the 1 earth, half broken arches. all this reached away and away, out from the inclosE'e 1 of the city, till lost in the bare desert country.
 1 Viewed thus, in the glaring sunshine
 and beneath that humid sky, the dead 1 city of Tim3ad seems as If seen in g i dream You can understand how men
 should have forgotten it and allowed it l to sleep so long beneath the sand. But when you come nearer, LOW that 1t has | been almost wholly uncovered. you see l how sumptuous and how wonderfully i alive 1t must once have been.
 1 You enter by & triumphal gate. adorned 1 with pedestals that supported statues. The
 Cardo Nord, once bordered with porti- | coes, leads in a straight line to the forum, passing before magnificent semi-circular building that must have been library. Here are the propylaea and stairway of the public square where the people of | Timgad assembled. A gallery, whose col
 umns rested upon a high masonry base, adorned it's four sides; there the statues l of gods and emperors were erected. No 1 buildings came, as at Rome. to cucumber | the open space. Timgads forum re-
 mained what it had been in the third cen- tury. It is easy to reconstruct 1t in ini-
 agination On It's four sides rose the
 civil basilica and its dependencies, the
 tribune for the orators before the temple
 sat, the prison, several shops and halls | perfectly recognizable.
 But what silence, where once was such
 life and hustle! This is the place where
 the philosophers debated while walk-I ing among tho statues of tho gods. i Grouped before these rostra. the voters
 listened to the harangues of statesmen.
 while idle youngsters lay in the shade of
 these glorious plinths, playing ancient