Carthaginian & Roman Tunisia

The exploration of Carthage begins with a visit to the site of the Byrsa Hill where we see remains of the 2^nd century BC Punic city covered over in the Roman period. Here, we see tantalising remains of Punic houses and streets where a plethora of Roman catapult balls which destroyed the city in 146 BC have been found. We continue to the Salambo Tophet, the haunting children’s cemetery which housed the remains of more than 20,000 children who appear to have been ritually sacrificed to the Punic gods Ba’al and Tanit. We walk a short distance to the Cothon, the military and commercial harbours built in the Punic period and refurbished in the Roman age. We end the day with a visit to the colossal Antonine Baths whose scale can be gauged by the fact they were fed by the Bordj Djedi cistern which held 25-30 million litres of water.

Today we journey to Dougga, the superb Numidian-Roman city whose well preserved streets and houses are terraced into a steep hillside with sweeping views over the surrounding countryside. We explore stunning public monuments, such as the Theatre, Licinian Baths and the Capitolium built in characteristic opus Africanum, as well as imposing elite houses, such as the House of the Trifolium. The state of preservation of the site gives us a fantastic grasp of the day to day life of the city, the scale of its wealth, the prosopography of its elite, as well as the harrowing last days of its Byzantine phase when the population withdrew into a small fortified section of the city to protect themselves from Arab invaders. The joy of this site is greatly enhanced by its isolated environment and the fact that the ruins can be enjoyed unencumbered by other tourists.

We spend the morning at the Bardo Museum a Beylical palace which houses one of the best collections of Roman mosaics in the world. In addition to the common mythological scenes depicted on mosaics throughout the Roman empire, North African mosaics are distinctive for their motifs for their vegetal borders and above all their quality. Today we see typically North African beast hunting scenes, depictions of every-day life in the Tunisian hinterland and fishermen drawing their nets exquisitely crafted in Tunisian marble tesserae. In the afternoon, we explore the Medina of Tunis, a UNESCO listed site first begun in the end of the 7^th century and developed in the 13^th century Almohad caliphate when Tunis became the capital of Ifriqiya. We are guided around the medieval, winding streets which host bewildering number of madrasas, shops and mosques. We end the day in Hammamet and our beach side hotel.

This morning we drive south to the spectacular amphitheatre of El Djem – one of the largest in the Roman world and a physical expression of the wealth of the region gained from its wheat and its olive oil production. Visible from miles away, the amphitheatre has atmospheric service rooms in the basement where animals and gladiators were pulleyed up to the arena floor. The third amphitheatre built in El Jem, it was built in 3^rd century just before the proconsul Gordian was claimed emperor in the city. We continue to the Sousse Museum, which hosts a smaller but perhaps better quality collection of mosaics, including a stunning Paleochristian baptismal font from Bqalta and several vast mosaics depicting beast hunting scenes. We return to our hotel in Hammamet at the end of the day.

Transfer to the airport in Tunis for our flight home.