A visit to Sabratha

Another Friday in Ramadan - it's the 18th day of Ramadan and since it was a Friday we decided to take a drive out and visit Sabratha. The weather was hot, dusty and hazy. We haven't been to Sabratha in quite a while. One of the first things we noticed was that they have put up a fence surrounding the theatre. It ruins any pictures that anyone takes of the outside of the theatre, but I guess this must be neccessary to secure the site. There were also about 4 huge tourist busses and about 12 smaller ones in the parking lot.

We looked at the museum first. There is a better collection of artifacts in the main museum in Tripoli, but many of the mosaics have been moved to the museum to protect them.

The main hall has some huge mosaics on display.

This mosaic was absolutely stunning.

A closer shot.

There are also quite a few statues represented in the museum. These are carved from marble and are imaculate in their details. This is a close up of the details on the clothing of one of the statues.

I'm not sure who this is - maybe Zeus? Unfortunately hardly anything is labeled in the museum.

To get an idea of the massive size of these statues here is Mustafa standing next to one.

Jenna and Ibrahim played games pretending to pick this poor guy's nose.

We walked and climbed around visiting the site.

There are some areas where the mosaics are still in their original places and are protected with small wooden fences. Sabratha is right on the edge of the sea and the view is quite lovely.

While I was busy looking at the antiquities Mustafa was enjoying himself looking at the tourists - 'Hey don't forget it's Ramadan! You're supposed to be fasting!'

Last stop was the theatre.

It's really a pleasant place to sit and relax. We had a lovely day, arriving home about six o'clock. I went in the kitchen to heat up dinner and make salad and throw the pizza in the oven so we could break our fast at six thirty.