El Djem amphitheatre

The places

The amphitheatre of Thysdrus

Built c. 230–250 CE in a town grown rich on olive oil. At 148 × 122 m and 36 m high it is among the largest amphitheatres of the Roman world; estimates of its capacity range from about 27,000 to 45,000.

Three storeys and an attic

Sixty-four arcades on each storey, framed by engaged half-columns: Corinthian, then Composite, then Corinthian. The two bays on the main axis are 1.5 m wider. Above ran an attic, now lost; it is shown closed, with small windows, like the Colosseum’s.

Inside the galleries

Behind the façade ran ring corridors. In the outer one each bay is shown with its own vault on transverse arches; the exact form of the vaulting is a reconstruction.

The gate on the main axis

Two gates 4.5 m wide on the main axis led under the seating straight onto the arena, the way the processions, the fighters and the animals came in.

The cavea

The seats rose in three tiers, each step about 40 cm high and 60 cm deep, above a podium about 3.5 m high. Almost all of them were later carted off as building stone; one block was restored in the 1980s.

The boxes of honour

On the short axis, over the podium, sat the magistrate who gave the games and his guests, in a box framed by columns. Its form here is an estimate.

On the sand

Beneath the sand ran two crossing galleries, 3.9 m deep. Animals and scenery rose through openings worked by winches, and a removable floor covered the central opening during the games.

How it was made

Modelled and lit in Blender: the light (sun, sky and every bounce) is path-traced once and stored with the model, so it stays true as you walk. The amphitheatre shown complete, c. 230–250 CE (Lézine and Golvin think it was never finished), at real scale (148 × 122 m, 36 m high), after H. Slim (1986) and J.-C. Golvin: 64 arcades a storey with engaged half-columns, three tiers of seats over a podium about 3.5 m high, of cut stone painted to imitate marble. The vaults of the outer gallery, storey heights, the seat rows and their stairs, the attic windows, the gates and the oil lamps of their passages, the boxes of honour, the masts of the awning and the colours are estimates; the town and olive groves are illustrative. Textures: Poly Haven (CC0).

Sources: Slim, “Les amphithéâtres d’El-Jem” (1986) · Amphithéâtre d’El Jem (fr.wikipedia) · UNESCO World Heritage

The era

Roman Africa, 146 BCE–439 CE: Africa Proconsularis, the granary that fed the Roman Empire.

Other reconstructions

• Punic Carthage, Byrsa hill
• The harbours of Carthage
• The Antonine Baths of Carthage