Limisa (today
Aïn-Lemsa) is a town and archaeological site in Kairouan Governorate,
Tunisia.
[Zeïneb Benzina Ben Abdallah, « Catalogue des inscriptions latines inédites de Limisa (Ksar Lemsa) », Antiquités africaines 40-41, éd. CNRS Éditions, Paris, 2004-2005, pp. 99-203] It is located 50 kilometers west of
kairouan. The town was a
Roman Catholic diocese.
The street pattern of the village is fairly regular in its layout and terrace fields move down the hill from the town to the nearby wadi Oued Maarouf. The Parc National Djebel Serj is to the north of the town, but the town is best known for the ruins of a Byzantine castra known as Ksar Lemsa. The Cave Mine is nearby.
History
During antiquity, Limisa was a
Roman Empire-
Berbers civitas in the
Roman province of
Byzacena. The remains of the town have been identified with ruins at
Henchir-Boudja near modern Limisa.
Little is known of the ancient Roman city of Limisa. A few excavations have been carried out and only the
Byzantine castra and the small Roman theater are known. The municipal organization is also only slightly understood, as epigraphic evidence indicates Roman-dominated Limisa was initially governed by the
Punic-style dual magistracy, the
sufet.
An
inscription corpus makes it possible to understand some aspects of the city from the architectural point of view as well as from its organization. The city had the status of
civitas at least until the beginning of the reign of the
Roman Emperor Septimius Severus then as a
Municipium sometime before 208.
From an architectural point of view, epigraphy mentions an arch and the restoration of thermal baths built under Constantine at the end of the 4th century.
According to Victor of Vita the of Lemsa had been burned in 305.[Victor of Vita, History of the Persecution by the Vandals; 30.10.]
The site was excavated between 1966 and 1969 by K. Belkhodja.
Ksar Lemsa
At Henchir-Boudja may be the ruins of a
Byzantine Castra,
[Michael Greenhalgh, The Military and Colonial Destruction of the Roman Landscape of North Africa (Brill, 2014) p. 261.][ Furni at New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.] with 15 feet wide walls and towers.
[Thomas Ludlow, A sketch of the cheid results of the Archaeological study in 1884.][Sidney Toy, History of Fortification from 3000 BC to AD 1700 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 19 Sep. 2006 ) p. 51 (1st ed. 1955; 2nd ed. 1966).]
