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Excavations at Carthage 1977–8. Fourth Interim Report1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Henry Hurst
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Summary

The present report covers the fourth and fifth seasons of excavation on the Ilôt de l'Amirauté at Carthage. Evidence from a borehole suggests that the pre-fourth-century B.C. sand previously taken for ‘natural’ may be a 5-m. thick fill above a level containing pottery. The later Punic sequence seems to indicate that the island and circular harbour were not made until the construction of the stone shipsheds in the late third or early second century B.C. The earth and timber ramps of these shipsheds were discovered with barnacles and probable ships’ nails lying on their surface. Much new evidence for the superstructure of the shipsheds was also found and an attempt has been made to reconstruct their appearance. Evidence for the Roman monumental rebuilding of the island in c. A.D. 200 has also been increased to the point where reconstructions can be attempted, and a large body of new information has been obtained for the structural sequence on the island from c. A.D. 200 to 700. Uncertainties remain over the interpretation of its function throughout the Roman period, although the rebuilding c. A.D. 200 might be associated with the creation of the African corn-fleet, the Classis Commodiana, in A.D. 186; and the site was possibly known as forum Karthag(inis) in the late fourth century and ‘the maritime agora’ in the time of Justinian.

Apart from further small-scale work, the present excavations are concluded; some further study of the early environmental sequence in the harbour area will be carried out in the next two years. A fifth and final interim report is planned to cover the excavations since 1976 at the north side of the Circular Harbour.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 19 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1979

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References

Notes

2 $20,000, to be shared with the American Schools of Oriental Research team under the direction of Professor L. E. Stager. The work will be carried out as a joint Anglo-American project.

3 Op. cit. (1977), figs. 2–7.

4 Described op. cit. (1976), 178 and (1978), 337.

5 See World Archaeology, ix (1978), 340, for discussion of the evidence.Google Scholar

6 Above, p. 46 .

7 Codex Theodosianus XVI, 10, 10 and 11 (A.D. 391) and Liber de promissionibus et praedictionibus Dei III, 38, 44 (temple of Caelestis, A.D. 421). See Audollent, A., Carthage Romaine (Paris, 1901), p. 391.Google Scholar

8 Professor Stager kindly helped with this.

9 The earlier interpretation as dune sand, op. cit. (1978), 337, may now need revision.

10 Op. cit. (1977), 233–5.

11 Op. cit. (1976), 180; (1977), 233–5.

12 Op. cit. (1978), 338–9, fig. 2.

13 Op. cit. (1977), 235, fig. 2.

14 Op. cit. (1977), 235; (1978), 343, 344.

15 Op. cit. (1977), 235.

16 Op. cit. (1977), 239.

17 A sample of one of the nails was analysed by Mr. G. C. Jones of the Natural History Museum (by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry on a 10 mg. sample) and found to consist of 98.8 per cent copper. I am indebted to Miss H. Frost for help in obtaining this analysis.

18 Op.cit. (1975), 18.

19 Op. cit. (1975), 18, fig. 5.

20 Op. cit. (1977), 238, fig. 3.

21 Earlier accounts in op. cit. (1976), 182, 189–90, and (1978), 339, 342.

22 Op. cit. (1978), 342, pl. 1b Stratigraphical proof of the Punic dating was obtained in further work (Sept. 1979).

23 Op. cit. (1978), 342.

24 I am indebted to Dr. Reece for the identification of these coins.

25 Rivista di Studi Liguri, xxi (1955), 252.Google Scholar

26 Livy XXX, 37, 3.

27 Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions (1912), p. 283.Google Scholar

28 Among a pile of stones just within the 1908–13 excavations where they cut Ramp 22. Probably in the area excavated in 1911: see below, p. 39.

29 Libyca, 96.

30 Coarelli, F., ‘Navalia, Tarentum e la topografia del Campo Marzio meridionale’, in Quaderni dell'istituto di topografia antica della Università di Roma, v (1968), 27–37.Google Scholar

31 The Liburnian discovered by Miss Honor Frost off Marsala has been reconstructed with a stern height of c.6.5 m. I am indebted to Miss Frost for sending drawings in advance of publication.

32 Libyca, 96.

33 Jeppesen, K., Paradeigmata (1958), p. 97.Google Scholar

34 Libyca, 95.

35 Ibid. 96.

36 Op. cit. (1977), fig. 5.

37 Description of Temple 1: op. cit. (1975), 22–4.

38 Op. cit. (1977), 242–5.

39 e.g. op. cit. (1977), fig. 6.

40 Op. cit. (1975), 27, 29; (1976), 182, 184–6.

41 Shown on plan, op. cit. (1977), fig. 1.

42 We are grateful to Dr.H. Geertman for advice on this point.

43 On North African macella see Boëthius, A. and Ward-Perkins, J. B., Etruscan and Roman Architecture (1970), pp. 482–3 with references.Google Scholar

44 Op. cit. (1975), 29; (1976), fig. 4.

45 Op. cit. (1977), 244–5, fig. 6.

46 Mrs. S. Walker kindly examined photographs and noted that a decorative band imitating that at the top of the Erechtheum columns has been amalgamated into the bottom of a composite capital. There are Hadrianic parallels for this type of capital from Athens, Rome, and Baiae; the Carthage example, however, seems unique in its use of a cheap relatively local material (Cap du Gard marble).

47 They are shown on Merlin's 1908 plan: Bulletin archéologique du Comité (1908), 52, pl. vi.

48 C.R.A.I. (1912), 278.

49 Journal des Savants, N.S. ix (1911), 514–23.Google Scholar

50 B.A.C. (1911), ccxxxvii.

51 B.A.C. (1908), pl. vi.

52 From the pottery, suggested to be late fifth- early-sixth century, op. cit. (1976), 187.

53 Op. cit. (1975). 27.

54 Dr. Lucilla Anselmino of the Italian team kindly examined the lamps.

55 Op. cit. (1977), 246–8. The suggestion made there that the centre of the island was cut away to provide material for the ramps now seems unlikely in view of the evidence for the sequences in the central and north-eastern areas.

56 Described earlier, op. cit. (1975), 30; (1976), 187.

57 Described earlier, op. cit. (1975), 30; (1976), 187, where it was called Building 4.

58 B.A.C. (1908), pl. vi.

59 Historia Augusta, Commodus, xvii, 7–8.

60 RIC iii.

61 Romanelli, P., Storia delle province romane dell'Africa (1959), pp. 385–6.Google Scholar

62 Vita Commodi, xvii, 7–8.

63 RIC iv, part 1 (1936), pp. 69–70. Babelon suggested that these coins referred to the water supply of Carthage, perhaps marking the relief of taxes for the maintenance of the aqueduct.Google Scholar

64 Transcribed by Cagnat and Merlin: see n. 52.

65 De Aed. vi, 5.

66 Romanelli's suggestion, op. cit. (n. 61), p. 386.

67 See Meiggs, R., Ostia (1960) on the collegia of Ostia.Google Scholar

68 Specialized fora such as the forum vinorum existed at Ostia: Meiggs, op. cit., p. 275.

69 See n. 6 above.