Magna Dry

"Do you know the movie" Legends of the Fall "? It is a wonderful film shot here in Libya in the 1950s with John Wayne and Sophia Loren. It is wonderful because it ends here, at Leptis Magna, and you can see many statues still in place. They have not yet been removed. It is also beautiful because of Sophia Loren. "Smiles Mohammed, our guide, bringing alive Leptis Magna in a way that I had not imagined possible.

Not that a site is Leptis bland, quite the contrary it is one of the most extraordinary of ancient Mediterranean. At its peak, he dominated the sea for nearly three kilometers and is estimated to have had a population of 100,000, the nearby town of El Khums modern collects only about 20,000.

The site was excavated mainly by the Italians in the 1920s and 1930s, more than 15 years. Only a third site was excavated and the question remains (no pun intended) of what treasures lie under.

Notwithstanding what is still short, there is much to impress at Leptis. The monumental center, the Arch of Septimius Severus, is a first step and impose the introduction of Leptis. He sets the tone and gives you an idea of the scale of the city. The Imperial Forum is at the heart of Leptis. Despite the ravages of time and looters, it is spectacular and is a vast region, a hundred meters by sixty meters, dotted with stone and surrounded by high walls. The auditorium had seating for 15,000.

"Ah, one of our talented guide silent," commented Mohammed we have adopted a disinterested local guide leading a group of tourists even more disinterested. His sense of humor made me realize two things. Firstly, tourists are rare in Leptis, for now at least. Secondly, unfortunately not everyone felt the same way on the site as I did, that everyone has had the benefit of the jokes of Mohammed and his insightful knowledge.

Some looked on jealously, like Mohammed produced a diagram of what the Baths of Hadrian might look like.

"One of the largest bath houses built outside Rome itself. The bathrooms are gorgeous. Not only in itself but as an example of how the Romans were advanced. "

"The table is eight meters high impressive. But what I find to be more remarkable is that the columns are not operated in the vicinity, but were brought from abroad by the Romans. Extraordinarily they were together . Judiciously the Romans did not try to put them on ships because of their weight, but they towed the columns on rafts behind their ships. "

More recently the Europeans were not so enlightened. On the beach there are three columns in 1680, fifteen hundred years after the Romans, Claude Lerner has tried to bring in Europe. He was defeated by their size.

Another proof of the superiority of Roman genius is in the fact that there are facilities in this area of desert. In addition, they have managed to heat the water despite the lack of firewood. "

This was easy to meet Muhammad: the Romans used the residue of pressed olive oil they pressed into bricks and dried. The result was a slow burning fuel that has burned at very high temperature. The water system was not so easy to answer.

"We know they have a tank that was bright reliant solely on rain, but as to its actual mechanics one can only wonder, a research team of UNESCO devoted a large part of the 1980s grappling with the problem, but failed to make a response. "

A library located adjacent to the Loos made me laugh at myself, especially because I could tell that my toilet habits have classical origins. The toilets themselves were close, uncomfortable, so for me at least. They were very close together and lacked a fountain, as at Ephesus, to provide sound coverage. Mohammi.