Dr. Nejib ben Lazreg is an archaeologist and researcher with the Institut National du Patrimoine in Tunisia. He is the Curator of the Salakta Archaeological Museum, the Lamta Museum, and Roman sites in Tunisia’s Sahel region (Leptis Minor, Thapsus, and Sullecthum). Nejib’s area of specialization is Tunisia’s Roman and Early Christian mosaics, though his career has also spanned other topics such as Punic, Roman, and Christian necropolises; and Roman pottery kilns, baths, and houses. He has conducted archaeological surveys in central Tunisia and excavations mainly in the Roman port cities of Leptis Minor, Thapsus, and Sullecthum, but also occasionally in the Kairouan region. Some of his major discoveries in Tunisia include an underground 4th-century Christian chapel and catacombs, and the mosaics of Venus (A.D. 300) and of the birth of Helen and the Dioscuri (A.D. 400), at Leptiminus (Lamta); the 3rd-century A.D. athletes mosaic and 6th-century A.D. mosaic-covered baptistery at Thapsus; and Christian catacombs at Sullecthum. In 2017, Nejib received the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters medal from the French Minister of Culture; and he organized the exhibition called “Shared Holy Places: Coexistence in Europe and the Mediterranean” at Tunis’s Bardo Museum, in cooperation with the Museum of Civilization of Europe and the Mediterranean of Marseille (MUCEM). Nejib was the AIA’s Kress Lecturer for 2009-10, and he has led this AIA tour of Tunisia five times since 2012, to excellent reviews.
Tunisian guide and archaeologist
