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Site of Carthage*
UNESCO World Heritage Site

Ruines de Carthage.jpg
State Party  Tunisia
Type Cultural
Criteria ii, iii, vi
Reference 37
Region** Arab States
Inscription history
Inscription 1979  (3rd Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.
** Region as classified by UNESCO.
Carthaginian Empire

Carthage (Arabic: قرطاج Qarṭāj‎, Ancient GreekΚαρχηδών Karkhēdōn, Berber: ⴽⴰⵔⵜⴰⵊⴻⵏ Kartajen, Hebrew: קרתגוkartago, Latin: Carthago or Karthago, from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt קרת חדשת meaning New City, implying it was a 'new Tyre'[1]) refers to a series of cities on the Gulf of Tunis, from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BCE to the current suburb outside Tunis, Tunisia.



Carthage seen from Spot Satellite



The city had massive walls, 23 miles (37 kilometres) in length, longer than the walls of comparable cities. Most of the walls were located on the shore and thus could be less impressive, as Carthaginian control of the sea made attack from that direction difficult. The 2.5 to 3 miles (4 to 4.8 kilometres) of wall on the isthmus to the west were truly large and, in fact, were never penetrated.



Layout of the city.

The historical study of Carthage is problematic. Because its culture and records were destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War, very few Carthaginian primary historical sources survive. While there are a few ancient translations of Punic texts into Greek and Latin, as well as inscriptions on monuments and buildings discovered in North Africa,[2] the main sources are Greek and Roman historians, including Livy, Polybius, Appian, Cornelius Nepos, Silius Italicus, Plutarch, Dio Cassius, and Herodotus. These writers belonged to peoples in competition, and often in conflict, with Carthage.[3] Greek cities contested with Carthage for Sicily,[4] and the Romans fought three wars against Carthage.[5] Not surprisingly, their accounts of Carthage are extremely hostile; while there are a few Greek authors who took a favorable view, these works have been lost.[6]



Legends of the foundation

Queen Elissa (Dido)


According to Roman sources, Phoenician colonists led by Queen Dido (Elissa) founded Carthage in 814 BCE. Queen Elissa (also known as "Alissar", and by the Arabic name[7] اليسار also اليسا and عليسا), was an exiled princess of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. At its peak, the metropolis she founded, Carthage, came to be called the "shining city," ruling 300 other cities around the western Mediterranean and leading the Phoenician (or Punic) world.


The mention of Queen Elissa (Dido) in Virgil's Aeneid


Carthaginian Republic

Carthaginian Empire in the 3rd century BCE





Roman trireme mosaic from Carthage, Bardo Museum, Tunis




Ruins of Carthage

The fall of Carthage came at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE.[11] In spite of the initial devastating Roman naval losses at the beginning of the series of conflicts and Rome's recovery from the brink of defeat after the terror of a 15-year occupation of much of Italy by Hannibal, the end of the series of wars resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus. The Romans pulled the Phoenician warships out into the harbor and burned them before the city, and went from house to house, capturing, raping and enslaving the people. Fifty thousand Carthaginians were sold into slavery.[12] The city was set ablaze, and in this way was razed with only ruins and rubble to field the aftermath. After the fall of Carthage, Rome annexed the majority of the Carthaginian colonies, including other North African locations such as Volubilis, Lixus, Chellah, and Mogador.[13] The legend that the city was sown with salt has no basis in the ancient sources; it seems to have originated in the late 19th century as a reflection of Abimelech's salting of Shechem in Judges 9:45.[14][15]

A city of survivors


District of punic Byrsa

On the top of the Byrsa hill, location of the Roman Forum, was unearthed a residential area from the last century of existence of the Punic city, more precisely from the early second century. It was excavated by the French archaeologist Serge Lancel. This site is an interesting alternative for those who cannot go to the more extensive ruins at Kerkuane (Punic city of Cape Bon). The neighborhood between houses and shops and private spaces is particularly significant [16].

The habitat is typical, even stereotypical. The street may be used as a store; a tank is installed in the basement to collect water for domestic use, and a long corridor on the right side leads to a courtyard containing a sump, around which various other elements may be found. In some places the ground is covered with mosaics called punica pavement, sometimes using a characteristic red mortar.

The remains have been preserved through the embankments, substructures of the later Roman substructures forum, whose foundation piles dot the district. The housing blocks are separated by a grid of straight streets of a width of approximately six metres, with a roadway consisting of clay. We also note in situ stairs to compensate for the fall of the hill. Construction of this type presupposes organization and political will, and has inspired the name of the neighborhood, "Hannibal district", referring to the Punic general or Suffete at the beginning of the second century BCE.

Roman Carthage

Roman Carthage


By 122 BCE, Gaius Gracchus founded a short-lived colonia, called Colonia Iunonia, after the Latin name for the punic goddess Tanit, Iuno caelestis. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, in order to undermine Gracchus' power. After this ill-fated attempt, a new city of Carthage was built on the same land by Julius Caesar in 49-44 BCE period, and by the 1st century it had grown to the second largest city in the western half of the Roman empire, with a peak population of 500,000[citation needed]. It was the center of the Roman province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the empire.


Vandal Empire in CE 500, centered in Carthage.



Islamic Carthage

The Byzantine Exarchate was not, however, able to withstand the Muslim conquerors of the 7th century. Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik in CE 686 sent a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qais who won a battle over Byzantines and Berbers led by Kusaila, on the Qairawan plain, but could not follow that up. In CE 695 Hasan ibn al-Nu'man captured Carthage and advanced into the Atlas Mountains. A Byzantine fleet arrived and retook Carthage, but in CE 698 Hasan ibn al-Nu'man returned and defeated Tiberios III at the Battle of Carthage. The Byzantines withdrew from all of Africa except Ceuta. The Roman Carthage was destroyed, just as the Romans had done in 146 BCE. Carthage was replaced by Tunis as the major regional centre. The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to Roman or Byzantine influence there, as the rising tide of Islam took root.



Carthaginians spoke Punic, a variety of Phoenician.


Carthaginian port





Punic pendant in the form of a bearded head, 4th3rd century BCE.

In addition to manufacturing, Carthage practiced highly advanced and productive agriculture, using iron ploughs, irrigation, and crop rotation. Mago wrote a famous treatise on agriculture which the Romans ordered translated after Carthage was captured. After the Second Punic War, Hannibal promoted agriculture to help restore Carthage's economy and pay the war indemnity to Rome (10000 talents or 800,000 Roman pounds of silver[19]), and he was largely successful.

Carthage produced wine, which was highly prized in Rome, Etruria (the Etruscans), and Greece. Rome was a major consumer of raisin wine, a Carthaginian specialty. Fruits, nuts, grain, grapes, dates, and olives were grown, and olive oil was exported in competition with Greece. Carthage also raised fine horses, similar to today's Arabian horses, which were greatly prized and exported.








Punic district of Carthage







Carthagian shekels from circa 310-290 BCE showing the wreathed head of Tanit


Caste of priests and acolytes


Punic stelae

Stelae on the Tophet


Child sacrifice

Carthage under the Phoenicians was criticized by its neighbors for child sacrifice. Plutarch (c. 46–120) mentions the practice, as do Tertullian, Orosius, Philo and Diodorus Siculus.[20] Herodotos and Polybius do not - it has been argued by skeptics that had they known of the practice they would have been horrified by it and have been sure to blow it up out of proportion due to their polemical treatment of the Carthaginians.[21] The Hebrew Bible also mentions child sacrifice practiced by the Canaanites, ancestors of the Carthaginians. The Greek and Roman critics, according to Charles Picard, objected not to the killing of children but to the religious nature of it. Exposure of children was common in ancient Greece and Rome but for economic rather than religious reasons.[22] There is some argument that the reports of child sacrifice were based on a misconception, later used as blood libel by the Romans who destroyed the city.[citation needed]

Modern archaeology in formerly Punic areas has discovered a number of large cemeteries for children and infants. These cemeteries may have been used as graves for stillborn infants or children who died very early.[23] Modern archeological excavations have been interpreted as confirming Plutarch's reports of Carthaginian child sacrifice.[24] In a single child cemetery called the Tophet by archaeologists, an estimated 20,000 urns were deposited between 400 BCE and 200 BCE, with the practice continuing until the early years of the Christian period. The urns contained the charred bones of newborns and in some cases the bones of fetuses and 2-year-olds. These remains have been interpreted to mean that in the cases of stillborn babies, the parents would sacrifice their youngest child. There is a clear correlation between the frequency of cremation and the well-being of the city. In bad times (war, poor harvests) cremations became more frequent, but it is not possible to know why. The correlation could be because bad times inspired the Carthaginians to pray for divine intervention (via child sacrifice), or because bad times increased child mortality, leading to more child burials (via cremation).

Accounts of child sacrifice in Carthage report that beginning at the founding of Carthage in about 814 BCE, mothers and fathers buried their children who had been sacrificed to Ba`al Hammon and Tanit in Tophet.[citation needed] The practice was apparently distasteful even to Carthaginians, and they began to buy children for the purpose of sacrifice or even to raise servant children instead of offering up their own. However, Carthage priests demanded the flower of their youth in times of crisis or calamity like war, drought or famine. Special ceremonies during extreme crisis saw up to 200 children of the most affluent and powerful families slain and tossed into the burning pyre.[citation needed]

Skeptics suggest that the bodies of children found in Carthaginian and Phoenician cemeteries were merely the cremated remains of children that died naturally. Sergio Ribichini has argued that the Tophet was "a child necropolis designed to receive the remains of infants who had died prematurely of sickness or other natural causes, and who for this reason were "offered" to specific deities and buried in a place different from the one reserved for the ordinary dead".[25] The few Carthaginian texts which have survived make absolutely no mention of child sacrifice, though most of them pertain to matters entirely unrelated to religion, such as the practice of agriculture. However, most scholars believe that these arguments are not supported by the evidence.[citation needed]

Modern times

Carthage remains a popular tourist attraction and residential suburb.


See also



  • Polybius[27]



  1. ^ Carthage: new excavations in Mediterranean capital
  3. ^ Carthage by B. H. Warmington p11
  4. ^ Herodotus, V2. 165–7
  5. ^ Polybius, World History: 1.7–1.60
  6. ^ Warmington, B. H. Carthage, p.11.
  7. ^ "Al-Watan Daily" (in Arabic). Retrieved 2007-07-25. 
  8. ^ Polybius, Book 6, 52. On the Perseus project


  9. ^ Adrian Goldsworthy - The Fall of Carthage
  10. ^ Polybius, History Book 6
  12. ^ Ancient History
  14. ^ R.T. Ridley, "To Be Taken with a Pinch of Salt: The Destruction of Carthage," Classical Philology 81:2 (1986).
  15. ^ George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana, The American Cyclopædia: a popular dictionary of general knowledge 5:235, 1874 full text
  17. ^ Aristotle, Politics Book 3,IX
  18. ^ Pliny, Nat His 33,96
  19. ^ Pliny 33,51
  20. ^ Diodorus Siculus. Trans. C.H. Oldfather. Diodorus of Sicily 1, VI, VIII, IX. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954-1963 (The Loeb Classical Library).
  21. ^ Carhtage a History, S Lancel, trans A Nevill, pp252
  22. ^ Life in Carthage Gilbert and Colette Charels-Picard pp149-50
  23. ^ Carhtage a History, S Lancel, trans A Nevill, pp251
  24. ^ Kelly A. MacFarlane, University of Alberta, Hittites and Phoenician
  26. ^ written by John Lawton
  27. ^ LacusCurtius • Polybius' Histories

External links

Coordinates: 36°51′11″N 10°19′23″E﻿ / ﻿36.85306°N 10.32306°E﻿ / 36.85306; 10.32306


Up to date as of January 15, 2010

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary


Proper noun




  1. Plural form of Carthaginian.


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