Le Vent à Djémila

“Pour un ‘Romain’ en mission en Algérie, pour un archéologue en séjour à Djemila, comme pour un touriste qui n’y fut que le temps d’une visite, évoquer le souvenir de ce site – un des plus beaux d’Afrique du Nord – c’est aussitôt penser à Yvonne Allais”1: the archaeologists Jean Lassus and Marcel Le Glay thus began their remembrance of their recently deceased colleague. Yvonne Allais (1891-1981) came to Algiers in 1925 to teach at Lycée de jeunes filles d’Alger. She began working at the archaeological site of Djemila immediately and with such passion that she lived in symbiosis with the ruins, almost identifying herself with the Numidian colony founded by the Romans, called Cuicul in Berber and Djemila in Arabic.