Djémila – Lost City Of The Ancient Kingdom Of Numidia

Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – When Albert Camus (1913 -1960) wrote about Djémila, a ruined Roman city in the mountains of Northern Algeria, he said this beautiful long-abandoned place is inhabited by the wind alone.

Camus wrote in Noces (Nuptials) that when you walk among the city’s ancient ruins, you can hear the wind which “pounces fitfully on the remains of the houses, on the immense forum that extends from the triumphal arch to the temple.” He described the ancient lost city of the Numida kingdom as a “great cry thrown out by the lugubrious and solemn stones at the mountains, the sky, and the silence.”

Ancient lost Roman city Djémila. Credit: Yves Jalabert – CC BY-SA 2.0

Today a dead city, Djémila was once a vivid place where people watched the theater, visited temples and basilicas. The sudden decline of Djémila remains a mystery. Still, archaeologists excavating at the site have discovered “broken statues, evidence of fire and absence of precious metals among the ruins suggest the city may have been pillaged.” ¹

But who could have destroyed this historical ancient city in North Africa?

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