ThuggaArticle Free Pass Thugga, modern Dougga, the best-
preserved ancient Roman city in modern Tunisia, located near
modern Tabursuq, west of the ancient road between Carthage and
Theveste (modern Tébessa, Alg.), some 60 miles (100 km) west of
Tunis. Thugga’s most notable pre-Roman ruin is a 2nd-century-bce
mausoleum, built in honour of a Numidian prince. The mausoleum,
a three-storied building topped by a pyramid, contained a
bilingual Phoenician and Numidian inscription and represented a
fusion of the Egyptian pyramidal funerary building and the
Hellenistic Greek temple. It was probably an ancestor of the
tower tombs with slender pyramids that were characteristic of
Roman Africa. Thugga was made a municipium (a community with
partial rights of Roman citizenship) by the Roman emperor
Septimius Severus (reigned 193–211 ce). Under the Romans it
developed as a wealthy economic and administrative centre,
supported by abundant local agriculture. It declined in the 4th
century ce. An arch erected in honour of Sept