Sabratha

The other major ruin site near Tripoli is called Sabratha. Sabratha is only an hour to the west from my hotel. It is much smaller than Leptis, and since I went early on a Friday, it was mostly empty. Friday is the high holy day here. No one leaves their house until after prayer at 1:30. This made it nice, since there was about 30 minutes before the Italian tour groups showed up that we were about the only people walking around.

What sets Sabratha apart from Leptis are the mosaics. They are numerous intact ones on the floors scattered all across the site. Most of the columns and facades here were much more weathered than than marble at Leptis, yet somehow many of these mosaics are in near perfect condition. I'm sure that means work had to have been done at some point in the last 50 years to work to restore them. Nonetheless, they're pretty beautiful.

Like I said, this site is much smaller than Leptis. The picture below shows pretty much the extent of it. It is pretty cool that there's no one here. There is another small temple location behind me closer to the beach, and the remains of a Christian Basilica. There wasn't much left of the basilica at this site. It was destroyed through earthquakes and raids over the centruries.


The lions below were from the spiar on a masoleum. You can see the tower in the photo above in the gap of the broken column.