Timgad Insula Grid: Quadrant Reference System

Numbering System Key (Edher 2026)

Format: TIMG.{Quadrant}.I{n} (e.g., TIMG.NW.I1 = insula at the NW corner of the CM/DM intersection). For individual houses within an insula, append .H{n} (e.g., TIMG.NE.I2.H1).

Quadrant origin: The Cardo Maximus (between C5-C6) and Decumanus Maximus (between R6-R7) divide the Trajanic city into four quadrants. Insula I1 in each quadrant is the block touching both axes.

Numbering direction: Insulae are numbered outward from the CM/DM intersection, proceeding row by row toward the city walls.

Quadrant sizes: NW = 5 cols x 6 rows = 30 insulae. NE = 6 cols x 6 rows = 36 insulae. SW = 5 cols x 6 rows = 30 insulae. SE = 6 cols x 6 rows = 36 insulae. Total = 132.

Building prefixes: H = House (domestic), P = Public building (forum, theatre, library), B = Baths (thermal complexes).

Extramural quadrants: E-NW, E-NE, E-SW, E-SE mirror the intramural divisions for houses outside the Trajanic walls. Houses that cannot yet be placed on the grid are listed under Unlocated.

Block colours follow the three tiers of evidence the project database assigns to each house. Blue cells hold at least one documented house: a house the excavation record describes and locates. Pale blue cells hold only probable houses: buildings the record treats as houses without describing them as such in full, most of them the blocks of the north-east and south-east quarters that Ballu's reports list house by house. Gray cells carry the possible tier, or residential blocks where no house has yet been securely documented. Where the catalog holds records for a block, their names are shown; where a block carries several tiers, the colour follows the strongest. The house's own placement confidence (certain, probable, uncertain) is given in the detail panel and on its catalog card. A thick border and ✓ mark houses whose full record is published in the catalog.

Analysis tags follow the catalog's vocabulary: drawn marks a house whose plan has been redrawn in the GIS as measurable vector geometry, graded wall by wall and doorway by doorway against the satellite imagery and the published plans; interpreted marks a house that has also been analysed room by room (convex spaces, access graph, depth from the street), with the results on its catalog card. Where a block holds several houses, the tag shows the furthest stage reached.

Monuments (the Forum, Theatre, baths, library, and markets) are placed by overlaying the quadrant grid on the georeferenced city plan, so their blocks match what a visitor sees on the ground. Where a monument's footprint covers a block that also carries a house record (the Library and the Eastern Market), the block is shaded as the monument and the house record remains available in the block's detail panel while its placement is checked against the original reports.

Purple G:## labels = Germain 1969 insula number. Her plan and catalog number the blocks west to east along each row, working row by row from the north wall (R1 holds 1-11, down to R6 with 56-66); the numbers shown north of the Decumanus follow that scheme, and every number printed on her plan there matches it. South of the Decumanus her numbering passes over the great monuments, so numbers appear only on the blocks her plan itself labels.