Tunisia - 29 September 2010 (3)

Museum of El Djem

Animals fighting in the Amphitheatre

Dionysus on a Tiger

Our next stop was the museum.  Lotfi said that it was 400m from the amphitheatre but the bus took a scenic route.  We drove down a road where young couples came from all over Tunisia to buy furniture for their new homes.  Everything was imported from China.

Owl and Unfortunate Birds

Water Nymph, Seahorse and Dolphins

Garden of Restored Roman Villa

Goddess Africa

The museum consisted of a reconstruction of a Roman villa, with mosaics displayed to show them in context, a preserved villa and ruins of buildings with just outline walls and a few mosaics left in situ.  As with many of the archaeological sites, the mosaics left outside had no protection against weather or people walking on them.  The mosaics in the reconstructed villa were very delicate, made with tiny tesserae, like the ones in the Bardo Museum.  Many of them showed Dionysus with his drunken father and the wild animals he had ridden.  The four seasons were also prominent.  Some of the mosaics showed gory scenes of the entertainments in the amphitheatre: most of animals fighting each other, but one of animals killing Germanic prisoners of war.  The restored villa contained the only surviving mosaics of the goddess Africa in two adjacent rooms.  Though different, the designs of both her headdresses were based on the elephant with its ears, trunk and tusks.

Goddess Africa