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Excavations at Carthage 1976: Third Interim Report1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Henry Hurst
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Summary

At the end of the third season of work by the British team participating in the UNESCO Save Carthage project, a summary is given of present knowledge of the occupation sequence on the Ilôt de l'Amirauté from c. 400 B.C. to A.D. 700. New information or reinterpretation since 1975 covers the relationship between the Punic and Roman planning of the island and the nature of its possible Augustan, Severan, and Justinianic rebuildings. The structures which have been excavated since 1974 between two Roman streets on the north side of the circular harbour are interpreted as a series of shops or small commercial premises of Roman and Byzantine date. Here, as on the island, a large-scale redevelopment of early Byzantine date is indicated. On the Avenue Habib Bourguiba the city wall now has archaeological dating consistent with the historical evidence that it was constructed c.A.D. 425 and it appears to be associated with a major defensive ditch. Burials were made between the wall and possible ditch shortly after, and perhaps during, the wall's construction. There is also archaeological confirmation of the historical evidence for the neglect of the defences under the Vandal occupation and for their repair following Belisarius' capture of Carthage in 533. By the end of the sixth century the defences were again being neglected and in the early seventh century there was a building on the site of the presumed Belisarian ditch. There is a suggestion of further defensive activity at the time of the Arab invasion. Within the wall, the sequence has been taken back to the destruction of a Roman building in the fifth century and a summary is made of the sequence for the whole site from the early fifth to the late seventh or early eighth century A.D. Field-work has now finished on this site while a further two seasons are anticipated on the two harbour sites.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , September 1977 , pp. 232 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1977

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References

NOTES

2 £21,000 for financial year 1976–7.

3 £20,000 spread over two years starting in 1975.

4 Op. cit. (1976), 179.Google Scholar

5 I am indebted to Professors L. Stager and R. Bullard, respectively the director and geologist of the American team, for making this information available.

6 The suggestion of Professor R. Stewart who kindly identified the seeds.

7 See Herodotus 2. 96 and 4. 177; also the well-known passage in Odyssey, 9, 89 ff.

8 Op. cit. (1976), 181.Google Scholar

9 ‘Merlin’ is used as the abbreviation for a programme of excavations carried out in 1908–13 by soldiers stationed in the Salammbo Caserne under the over-all direction of A. Merlin as the then director of the antiquities service at Tunis. The main publications of the remains on site are Bulletin archéologique du Comité (1909), 51–3Google Scholar and Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscr. (1912), 277–86Google Scholar.

10 Antiq. Journ. lvi (1976), 188.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., lv (1975), 18–22; lvi (1976), 181–2.

12 Libyca, viii, 96; Strabo, xvii, 3, 14–15.

13 See above, note 9.

14 For earlier accounts see Antiq. Journ. lv (1975), 25–30Google Scholar ; lvi (1976), 182–6, 188–90.

15 I am indebted to Mrs. S. Walker for her comments on the dating. It is hoped that a drawing by Miss S. Gibson reconstructing the order can be published in the next interim report.

16 Miss Sheila Gibson kindly carried out a study on site and made preliminary drawings. It is hoped to complete this work when the rest of the entrance is excavated in 1977.

17 With article in Bull. Arch. Com. (1909), 51–3.Google Scholar

18 Op. cit. (1975), 39.Google Scholar

19 Fouilles à Carthage (Paris, 1861), p. 105.Google Scholar

20 R.I.C. iv, part 1 (1936), pp. 69–70Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr. J. P. C. Kent for pointing out these coins. Professor A. Carandini, the director of the Italian team at Carthage, kindly drew my attention to Commodus' creation of a new African corn fleet, the Classis Commodiana Herculea, and refoundation of Carthage as Colonia Commodiana Herculea in A.D. 191 (Historia Augusta, Commodus xvii, 7–8) as another possible context, but this seems unlikely in view of the statement slightly earlier in the Historia Augusta (Commodus xvii, 5) that Commodus did not undertake public works.

21 Op. cit. (1975). 27.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. 30; lvi (1976), 187.

23 This is not specifically stated in the sources but must have happened during the hostilities of 439–42 and 455–74 at least.

24 Procopius, De Bello Vandalico, i. 5·5–6, 24.

25 Bull. Arch. Com. (1909), 51–3.Google Scholar

26 C.R.A.I. (1912), 282.Google Scholar

27 Op. cit. (1976), 187.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. lv (1975), 32.

29 Ibid. lvi (1976), 182.

30 The stratification was disturbed within the area excavated in 1974–5 and has become clear in section as a result of weathering.

31 Op. cit. (1975), 30–2; (1976), 191–3.Google Scholar

32 ‘Stakehole’ is used here to mean the void made by the decay of timber post driven into the ground; ‘posthole’ means a larger hole excavated in order to insert a post.

33 The evidence is from a single 31 X 5 m. trench which has been excavated since 1974. For earlier reports on the defences see Antiq. Journ. lv (1975), 36–8Google Scholar; lvi (1976), 193–4.

34 Chronica Gallica, anno 425: Mommsen, T. (ed.), Chronica Minora, i (Berlin, 1892), 658Google Scholar.

35 Op. cit. 193.

36 De Aedificiis vi, 5.

37 Op. cit. 193.

38 Previous reports of this area in Antiq. Journ. lv (1975), 32–6Google Scholar ; lvi (1976), 194–6.

39 For Building 1 see Antiq. Journ. lv (1975), 35–6.Google Scholar

40 Op. cit. (1976), 194–5; above, pp. 258–9.Google Scholar

41 Op. cit. (1976), 193–4; above, p. 257.Google Scholar

42 Op. cit. (1976), 195–6.Google Scholar

43 Op. cit. (1976), 196.Google Scholar