Leptis Magna

Leptis Magna lies on the Mediterranean coast of Libya near modern Al-Khums, one of the best preserved Roman cities in the Mediterranean, greatly expanded in the early third century AD under the emperor Septimius Severus, who was born there. Its surviving structures include a monumental forum, a basilica, an amphitheatre, a circus and an elaborately carved triumphal arch honoring Severus, along with extensive baths and a market complex built from imported and locally quarried stone. Its harbor silted up in late antiquity, and the resulting burial under sand and silt helped preserve much of the city until it was cleared and excavated in the twentieth century. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1982.