Thugga (now Dougga) was an ancient city in the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis, in what is now northern Tunisia. Since 1997, it is on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage.
Thugga is upon the steep cliffs (Numidian: Tukka), which close the city in the north. In the 4th Century BC It was founded as a Phoenician city in the territory of Carthage. Diodorus mentions Thugga in connection with the conquest of the Greeks Agathocles of Syracuse in 305 BC After the fall of Carthage in 146 BC conquered the Numidian king Massinissa Thugga. After the defeat of the Numidian Thugga was 46 BC, Roman finally.
Thugga was first legally dependent on the Roman colony of Carthage. In that time pointed to a double Thugga Constitution. While the Numidian Thuggas inhabitants were united in a civitas, is the Roman citizens to pagus Thuggensis. Under Septimius Severus was Thugga municipium, 261 AD colony eventually. On a late-antique diocese goes back the titular Thugga the Catholic Church.
After a heyday in the 3rd Century began in the 4th Century, a steady decline of the city, probably ceded much of its importance to the adjacent Thubursicum Bure (Teboursouk). From 439-533 Thugga belonged to the kingdom of the Vandals and was then Byzantine. Under Justinian I, was on the forum of Thugga built a fortress, the per capita income reported in his book de aedificiis. In the aftermath Thugga lost its meaning entirely urban and lived on an Arab village until the village in the middle of the 20th Century, was moved to allow archaeological excavations. Today, the ancient Thugga by archaeologists of the Tunisian Monuments Office in cooperation with the universities of Bordeaux and Freiburg im Breisgau is explored.
Thugga is upon the steep cliffs (Numidian: Tukka), which close the city in the north. In the 4th Century BC It was founded as a Phoenician city in the territory of Carthage. Diodorus mentions Thugga in connection with the conquest of the Greeks Agathocles of Syracuse in 305 BC After the fall of Carthage in 146 BC conquered the Numidian king Massinissa Thugga. After the defeat of the Numidian Thugga was 46 BC, Roman finally.
Thugga was first legally dependent on the Roman colony of Carthage. In that time pointed to a double Thugga Constitution. While the Numidian Thuggas inhabitants were united in a civitas, is the Roman citizens to pagus Thuggensis. Under Septimius Severus was Thugga municipium, 261 AD colony eventually. On a late-antique diocese goes back the titular Thugga the Catholic Church.
