History

Bulla Regia’s origins lie deep in Berber and Punic North Africa. The site was already settled in the Numidian period, and by the late 2nd century BC it had become a royal residence: Adherbal, son of Micipsa and grandson of Massinissa — the Numidian king who allied with Rome against Carthage in the Second Punic War — held court here around 117 BC. The city passed into Roman hands as part of the province of Africa Nova following the Jugurthine War, and it was during the Roman imperial period, particularly the 2nd–3rd centuries AD under the Hadrianic and Antonine emperors, that Bulla Regia reached its apogee as a prosperous provincial city.

It was during this peak period that the city’s wealthy citizens devised their extraordinary architectural solution to the North African climate. Rather than simply thickening walls or adding awnings, the élite of Bulla Regia constructed their houses on two floors — but with the primary floor below ground. A visitor descending a gentle stair from the street would enter a courtyard and reception rooms of full Roman sophistication: high vaulted ceilings, fine polychrome mosaic floors depicting mythological scenes, colonnaded galleries open to the sky through light wells, and the ambient coolness of earth-insulated walls maintaining a temperature approximately 15°C below the summer air above. The city declined during the 4th century, converted to Christianity in the Byzantine period as evidenced by a substantial basilica, and was gradually abandoned following the Arab conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century.