Resumen de Stone blocks used for the building of the Thysdrus and Thapsus amphitheatres in Tunisia
A. Younes, Mohamed Essghaier Gaied, Wissem Gallala
In Tunisia, the Thysdrus (El Djem) largest amphitheatre (known as the Coliseum), with some parts of the second amphitheatre, and the Thapsus amphitheatre have been built with squared stone blocks ("opus quadratum"). The petrographic and geotechnical analyses of the samples taken from the amphitheatre blocks show that these blocks belong to the Tyrrhenian and to the Mio-Pliocene age. Ancient quarries have been found on the Tyrrhenian dune line between Hiboun and Al Alya at a distance of 30 km from Thysdrus, and from which the Tyrrhenian blocks have been extracted. As concerns the Mio-Pliocene blocks they have most likely been cut from solely one ancient quarry found in the hill of Ksour Essaf. The height of almost all the measured bloks from the Thysdrus Coliseum es equal to the Punic cubit used at Carthage (50 cm), whereas the height of the measured blocks from the Thapsus amphitheatre is equal to this Punic cubit (50 cm) or very close to the Roman cubit (45 cm)
