Leptis Magna: A Lost City
Visiting a place that is hundred years older than your religion and traditions. How would it feel?
It’s such an amazing thing to watch TV shows or programs showing the beauty of your country and its history, so how would seeing it face to face make you feel?
Before anything else, I’ll give you a brief history lesson about this majestic and ancient city.
Lepcis Magna (also known as Leptis Magna) was a city in Libya founded by Phoenicians from Tyre at the end of 7th century BCE, where the Wadi Lebda meets the Mediterranean Sea. During the Third Punic War, Lepcis Magna became an ally of the Romans, which made it a favored and important city within the Roman Empire. It is in Khums, Libya.
Exploring the whole area of the place requires strength and stamina, for you’ll need to walk several kilometres under the bright and dazzling sun. A few kilometres from the entrance stands the famous and mighty arch, the Arch of Septimus Severus.
The Arch of Septimus Severus satisfies your eyes and your soul with its impossibly beautiful carvings and designs. The start of the very long journey had been a good one.
The faces and the bodies sculpted on its thick and strong foundations have been there for thousands of years and have witnessed more things than any living human has.
A tour guide welcomed us and told us a bit about the city and its former rulers. We headed to a place where there were bath places of different kinds. The way they did it back then is really interesting and astonishing. Wherever you turn your head, there’s a good view. There were temples all around, too. Temples built for gods and goddesses of the Roman Mythology. Many walls and tablets have inscriptions in it that were in Latin. You would also see Roman Numerals carved on the walls. As we walked farther, the better we understood the history of the place.
You wouldn't need a guide because the place itself seems to talk to you and express its beauty to you.
One of the best most beautiful places there was the marketplace; it is a beautiful round building that possesses sheer simplicity.
If you want to feel like you’re on the top of the world, then go to the Senate house and climb the big rocks there. It’s an immensely large building that is filled with stones and mini- arches that have a person’s face on them.
The most breath-taking part of the tiresome yet, satisfying journey was being in the wide and tall amphitheatre. It will give you the feeling of being in the ancient times. The seats are wide and many , it looks like the one that one would see in a movie. The architecture and the designs of the amphitheatre and the whole Leptis Magna is without a doubt a work of art. I was left wondering how their architects and engineers built these buildings without technology to make things easier.
Standing on the highest level of the seats in the amphitheater gives you free access to the best view to the wide and jaw-droppingly aesthetic place as it unfolds before your eyes.
The day ended with our feet throbbing, from the eternally long walk that we had. Our curiosity had been satisfied and gave us an actual visual representation of history.
After that day, a realization came to mind, that is : travelling and visiting places is one of the best thing you can do to educate yourself and see that there is more to life, and we all should take the chance while we still can.
This trip to Leptis Magna is definitely something everyone should try to have.
Indeed, Leptis Magna is a piece of diamond hidden in the desserts. A diamond that needs to be preserved for other generations to see.
Thank you for reading!
