Carthage

Lore & Background

The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeter of the new city. The ancient city was destroyed in the nearly three year siege of Carthage by the Roman Republic during the Third Punic War in 146 BC. It was re-developed a century later as Roman Carthage. Late antique and medieval Carthage continued to play an important cultural and economic role in the Byzantine period. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698. It remained occupied during the Muslim period and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period. During the Eighth Crusade, Crusaders landed near Carthage but did not capture or massacre the city's inhabitants; the Hafsids later decided to destroy its defenses. It also continued to function as an episcopal see. The regional power shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919.

In Their Own Story

The sun bleeds red over the Gulf of Tunis, casting long shadows across the silent stone ribs of what was once the Byrsa Hill citadel. A lone gull cries out, echoing the phantom roar of a thousand merchant ships that once crowded the circular military harbor. Here, where the scent of salt and crushed myrrh once mingled with the smoke of sacrifice, only the wind moves through the colonnades. In the distance, the modern city hums, but beneath the dust lies the ghost of an empire that taught Rome how to fear, a testament to a power so vast it nearly swallowed the known world.

Reader's Guide

The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830 by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage. The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984. The site of the ruins is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Did You Know?

• The name Carthage comes from the Punic 'Qart-ḥadašt', meaning 'new city'.
• Carthage had two large artificial harbors, one for warships and one for mercantile trade.
• The city's walls were over 13 m high and nearly 10 m thick in places.
• The citadel Byrsa was the last area to succumb to the Romans in 146 BC.