El Guettar

El Guettar or El Kettar (rear RTL القطار) is a city located at 18 kilometers in the south-east of Gafsa.

Attached administratively to the Governorship of Gafsa, it constitutes a municipality of 13.554 inhabitants (2006).

The city developed near a Oasis of 450 Hectare S located at the foot of the mountainous solid mass of the Djebel Orbata (1165 m) and near a Sebkha.

Prehistory

The site Moustérien of El Guettar (old of more than 40.000 years) delivered a structure formed by a round heap of stones laid out in a cone of approximately 75 centimetres in height for a diameter of 130 centimetres. These round stones, in Calcareous or Flint, are sometimes worked. They are associated with animal Os sements of , Dent S and objects of flint cut moustériens as well as a pédonculée point Atérien. Mr. Gruet, the archeologist who discovered it, interprets this structure like a building carried out in offering with the close source, drained today, and translating a religious feeling or magique^,. It is known under the name of Hermaïon d' El Guettar , by reference to the stone heaps built in the Antiquité in relation to the worship of Hermes, and is exposed with the National museum of Bardo.

History

The city is known in the modern history to have been the place of the Bataille of El Guettar, episode of the Second world war within the framework of the Campagne of Tunisia, in 1943.

References

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