Bulla Regia was a Berber, Punic, and Roman town near present-day Jendouba, Tunisia. Its surviving ruins and archaeological site are noted for their Hadrianic-era semi-subterranean housing, a protection from the fierce heat and effects of the sun. Many of the mosaic floors have been left in place; others may be seen at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. There is also a small museum connected with the site. Names The Punic name of the town appears on its currency as (). This has been suggested to have been a contraction of (), meaning "House" or "Temple of Baal". The name Bulla Regia is Latin for "Royal Bulla". The epithet refers to its status as the Numidian capital under Masinissa. It was notionally refounded at the time of its elevation to colony status and formally named after its imperial sponsor Hadrian. History Berber town A Berber settlement probably predated the Punic one. Imported Greek ceramics dating to the 4th centuryBC have been found. Punic town Carthage gained control over the town during the 3rd centuryBC, when inscriptions reveal that the inhabitants venerated Baal Hammon and buried their dead in urns in the Punic style. A capital from a temple of Tanit is preserved at the site's museum. Numidian capital Bulla Regia was part of the territory won for Rome by Scipio Africanus in 203BC during the Second Punic War. The Numidian king Masinissa "recovered the lands of his ancestors" (as noted in an inscription) and made Bulla his capital in 156BC. One of his sons maintained a palace in the city. Under the Numidians, a regularized orthogonal grid street plan was imposed in the hellenistic manner on at least part of the earlier irregular system. Roman colony The Romans assumed direct control in 46BC, when Julius Caesar organized the province of Africa and rewarded the (perhaps simply neutral) conduct of Bulla during the recent civil war by making it a free city (). Under Hadrian, it was raised to the status of a Roman colony and its citizens given full citizenship. Destruction Bulla Regia slowly lost importance under Byzantine rule. As elsewhere in the late empire, the local aristocracy found themselves in a position to increase the extent of their houses at the expense of public space: the House of the Fisherman was adapted to link two separate , turning a thoroughfare into a dead end. An earthquake destroyed Bulla Regia, collapsing