Tunisia - Sidi Jdidi

The modern village of Sidi Jdidi is situated in the country, ten kilometers west of Hammamet. It is dominated by the ruins of the roman city which can be identified with the place known as Aradi by epigraphic sources. The interest was raised by ancient works which had revealed the remains of two christian basilicas, one of them beeing part of the episcopal group. The excavation has been now extended to the whole churches and to their environment. The south church had a mosaic pavement in the central nave : this gives opportunity to study the liturgical use of the monument. Dating probably from the second quarter of the fifth century, it has been entirely rebuild in the time of the Byzantine conquest. It was a votive church, a shrine for a reliquary. The north church belong to the episcopal group which was actually composed by two parallel churches divided by an insula assuming domestic functions ; founded probably a little earlier than the south church, the group assumed also funerary functions for the community as show the mosaics covering the graves. Then, in the west church, this function was amplified by the deposit of a sarcophagus against the wall opposite the apse. It marked the beginning of an isolation of the two first bays of each of the three naves. At the date of the byzantine rebuilding of the church and its baptistery, these two bays, for martyrological purposes, were occupied by a triumphal monument dominating the yard used as cimetery. A large entry into this yard was managed just in front of this monument. But at that date, the other church composing the group was abandonned, and the neighbour insula too, marking a retractation and an impoverishment of the site.

The city seems to be almost deserted in the time of the arab conquest.