Carthage

Carthage

Top: Carthage Saint-Louis Cathedral, Malik-ibn Anas Mosque, Middle: Carthage Palace, Bottom: Baths of Antoninus, Amphitheatre of Carthage (all items from left to right)
Shown within Tunisia
Location	Tunisia
Region	Tunis Governorate
Coordinates	36°51′10″N 10°19′24″E / 36.8528°N 10.3233°E / 36.8528; 10.3233
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iii, vi
Designated	1979 (3rd session)
Reference no.	37
Region	North Africa

Carthage^[a] was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. It became the capital city of the civilisation of Ancient Carthage and later Roman Carthage.

The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC.^[1] The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city,^[2] though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeters of the new city.^[3] As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule the colonies.^[4]

The ancient city was destroyed in the nearly-three year siege of Carthage by the Roman Republic during the Third Punic War in 146 BC. It was re-developed a century later as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The question of Carthaginian decline and demise has remained a subject of literary, political, artistic, and philosophical debates in both ancient and modern histories.^[4][5]

Late antique and medieval Carthage continued to play an important cultural and economic role in the Byzantine period. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire.^[6] It remained occupied during the Muslim period^[7] and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again.^[8] It also continued to function as an episcopal see.

The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage.^[9][10] The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984. The site of the ruins is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[11]

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