AMPHITHEATRE OF TYSDRUS (EL DJEM.)
CORRIDOR OF FIRST STOREY.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY F. RITCHIE ESQUIRE.
The windows of the fourth storey of the Coliseum are square-headed, as was generally the case in monuments of this kind; but at El-Djem the heads of the windows are neither straight nor semicircular, but segmental, and they are built as true arches, with voussoirs. They are placed at every third interpilaster.
The study of these African monuments would be very interesting to one who would undertake to write the history of arch and vault building. Specimens are frequently met with amongst these ruins, showing that problems had been solved at a very early date in Africa, which many stereotomists suppose to have been known only for a few centuries.
Each of the three lower storeys possessed sixty-four columns and arches, and at each extremity was a grand entrance, but the west one is included in the breach made by Mohammed Bey in 1697, to prevent the building being again used as a fortress. Since then the work of destruction has gone on rapidly, and now fully one-third of the whole of the perimeter is destroyed.
The interior of the amphitheatre has suffered much more than the exterior, doubtless from the fact that it has so often served as a fortress, and partly from the material having been taken to block up the lower galleries, and to build the modern village. Almost all the steps have disappeared, although these are shown in Bruce’s sections as rising in a great bank or incline, and with but one slight break, from the arena to the third storey, and again between the top of this third storey and the face of the attic. El-Bekri mentions this disposition of seats; he says, ‘The height is 24 toises; all the interior is disposed in steps from bottom to top.’[132]
Bruce’s remarks regarding El-Djem are very brief, but they cause the utmost regret that his finished drawings, and especially the subterranean plan of the building, should not be forthcoming.
I turned again to the north-west, and came to Tisdrus, as it was anciently called—now El-Gemme—where there is a large and spacious amphitheatre, perfect, as to the desolation of time, had not Mahomet Bey blown up four arches of it from the foundation, that it might not serve as a fortress to the rebel Arabs. The sections, elevations, and plans, with the whole detail of its parts, are in the King’s Collection. I have still a subterraneous horizontal section to add to it, an entrance to which I forced open in my journey along the coast to Tripoli, and an explanation[133] of all its parts, when I shall have time and a little assistance, but its sketch is perfectly completed already. This was made so as to be filled up with water by means of a sluice and aqueduct, which are still entire. The water rose up in the arena through a large square hole, faced with hewn stone in the middle, when there was occasion for water games or naumachiæ.
Dr. Shaw imagines that this was intended to contain the pillars that supported the velum, which protected the spectators from the influence of the sun. It might have served for both purposes, but it seems to be too large for the latter; though I confess, the more I have considered the size and construction of these amphitheatres, the less I have been able to form an idea concerning this velum, or the manner in which it served the people, how it was secured, and how it was removed.[134] This was the last ancient building I visited in the kingdom of Tunis, and I believe I may confidently say that there is not, either in the territory of Algiers or Tunis, a fragment of good taste of which I have not brought a drawing to Britain.