Qualla: Sabratha https://qualla.com/sabratha en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Sabratha https://qualla.com/sabratha Sabratha: Introduction https://qualla.com/sabratha/ Photo credit Abdalrahem Omar Zaed, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Beatles almost played their final concert here. In 1969, as the band was disintegrating, someone suggested the ancient Roman theater at Sabratha as a venue for one last performance. They chose a London rooftop instead, but the idea captures something essential about this place: Sabratha has always been where grand ambitions arrive from across the sea. Phoenician traders founded it around 500 BC. Romans rebuilt it into a monumental city. UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1982. Now the Mediterranean that brought all of them is slowly taking the ruins back.

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Image: Abdalrahem Omar Zaed | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/smbf-sabratha-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Sabratha: A Berber Name, a Phoenician Port https://qualla.com/sabratha/ Photo credit SashaCoachman, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name Tsabratan appears to be Berber, suggesting a settlement existed before Phoenician ships ever anchored offshore. Around 500 BC, Phoenician traders established the port as an outlet for products from the African interior, part of the network of coastal stations that suppor...

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Image: SashaCoachman | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/smbf-sabratha-a-berber-name-a-phoenician-port.mp3 0:06 2 full Sabratha: The Severan Zenith https://qualla.com/sabratha/ Photo credit SashaCoachman, CC BY-SA 3.0. Emperor Septimius Severus was born in nearby Leptis Magna in AD 145, and under the Severan dynasty he founded, both cities reached their monumental peak. Sabratha expanded to nearly twice its previous size. The theater, with its extraordinary three-story colonnaded stage wall, wa...

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Image: SashaCoachman | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/smbf-sabratha-the-severan-zenith.mp3 0:06 3 full Sabratha: Earthquake, Vandals, and Slow Abandonment https://qualla.com/sabratha/ Photo credit SashaCoachman, CC BY-SA 3.0. The earthquake of AD 365, which devastated cities across the eastern Mediterranean, badly damaged Sabratha. The 4th century brought further seismic shocks. When the Vandals seized control in the 5th century, large portions of the city were abandoned outright. A modest revival und...

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Image: SashaCoachman | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/smbf-sabratha-earthquake-vandals-and-slow-abandonment.mp3 0:06 4 full Sabratha: Agatha Christie's Husband and Other Visitors https://qualla.com/sabratha/ Photo credit Giovanni Boccardi, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo. In 1943, during the Second World War, archaeologist Max Mallowan was posted to Sabratha as assistant to the Senior Civil Affairs Officer of Tripolitania. His main duty was overseeing grain rations, but his biographer wife Agatha Christie's account reveals the atmosphere: Mallowan...

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Image: Giovanni Boccardi | CC BY-SA 3.0 igo

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/smbf-sabratha-agatha-christies-husband-and-other-visitors.mp3 0:06 5 full Sabratha: The Sea Takes What It Gave https://qualla.com/sabratha/ Photo credit crucially (Artur Bergman), CC BY-SA 2.0. Sabratha's most relentless enemy is not war but water. The coast here is composed of soft rock and sand, and the calcarenite building stone is acutely vulnerable to salt spray, wind erosion, and biological weathering. Without the protective stucco that originally covered the stru...

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Image: crucially (Artur Bergman) | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/m/b/f/sabratha-wp/smbf-sabratha-the-sea-takes-what-it-gave.mp3 0:06 6 full