Carthage & Roman Tunisia

Today is devoted to Carthage, now a wealthy suburb of Tunis, but scattered with the remains of this once great Phoenician city. We start our day at Byrsa Hill, once the citadel and a central feature of the Punic settlement. There are fantastic views over the modern city from here. Next, we continue to the disquieting Salambo Tophet, a cemetery which contained the remains of children who were sacrificed to Tanit after they were already dead, or more likely as live victims. We also visit the Cothon, or harbour, testament to Carthage’s famous maritime might; the Roman Antonine Baths, one of the largest in the whole of the Roman empire and the huge cisterns which supplied them.

This morning we begin with a visit to the famous Bardo Museum, situated in an old Beylical palace. It houses one of the most important collections of mosaics anywhere in the world. Highlights include the Virgil Mosaic and the Odysseus Mosaic, as well as many depicting beast hunts. There is a wonderful collection of Carthaginian artefacts and Paleo Christian baptisteries. In the afternoon we study a section of the Carthage aqueduct at Jebel Oust, before exploring nearby Oudna, a city established by Emperor Augustus for retired soldiers of the Third Legion.

We drive west to Dougga, one of the best preserved and most famous ancient sites in North Africa. Here, we visit the theatre and famous Capitolium. We also explore bath complexes, houses and sanctuaries, all in the kind of peace no longer found at European sites. Dougga is one of the Roman world’s best sites and a visit here is always a memorable one.

We start at the ancient site of Musti, once a town of some importance but still largely unexcavated before continuing north to Bulla Regia. The city was made the Numidian capital by Massinissa and here we will explore a bath complex, as well as a series of houses, replete with mosaics, which have underground rooms, offering their elite owners protection from the African heat. These houses include the impressive House of the Hunt and the House of Amphitrite. From here, we continue north to Hammamet.

We journey south to the delightful and little visited site of Thuburbo Majus. Originally Punic (though it has a characteristic Th sound associated with Numidian cities), the city was later re-founded as a Roman veteran colony in the Augustan period. Here we will explore the forum, dominated by the Capitolium, before moving on to the Winter Baths and Summer Baths. In between the two, there is the well-preserved Palaestra of Petronius, which belonged to the Summer Baths, and a memorable latrine. We walk up to view some temples with a Punic flavour: the Temple of Baalit and Temple of Caelestis, both Romanised names of Punic goddesses. Later this afternoon, we travel to Kairouan, Tunisia’s most important religious city, founded by the Umayyads in the 7th century AD.

Today we make our way southeast to El Djem. Originally a Numidian city called Thysdrus, El Djem was particularly wealthy in the 2nd century AD and into the late antique period when it was an olive oil production centre. On the back of this wealth, the city built several amphitheatres, the most important of which was built in the 3rd century AD and is one of the largest in the empire. We will explore this huge structure – visible for miles – and continue to the museum of El Djem, which has a wonderful collection of mosaics, as well as in situ houses, which provide glimpses of the city’s wealth. This afternoon we return to Kairouan to visit the Great Mosque, which has a plethora of reused Roman pillars and lintels and explore the city’s medina.

We travel to Sousse to visit its museum, located in the city’s 12th century kasbah and which has the second largest collection of mosaics in the world, after the Bardo. The earliest artefacts in the museum date from the city’s Punic period, when it was called Hadrumetus. The most splendid, however, date from the prosperous Roman period, when the citizens of Hadrumetum, made rich from trade, could afford the best mosaics in the Roman empire. Here we will see mosaics which testify to this maritime background, the most famous of which is the large mosaic of Neptune on his chariot. From here we continue north to Hammamet.

Today we drive along the Cap Bon Peninsula, the point of Tunisia that is closest to Sicily. Our morning will be spent at Kerkouane, a UNESCO-listed site overlooking the sea. It was inhabited from the 7th to 3rd century BC and it was abandoned after the first Punic War, making it the only purely Punic site in Africa. The highlights of this site are the houses that typically contain bathtubs waterproofed with a pinkish mortar. We visit the site museum, which has interesting remains from the nearby necropolis. We have a picnic on site here before travelling to Nabeul – today famed for its ceramics but in antiquity a trading port founded by Cyrene. On arrival, we visit the museum to view its mosaics and to read about the production of garum in the area.

We transfer to Tunis airport for our flight home.