Over 130 Roman inscriptions uncovered at ancient site of Mustis in northern Tunisia

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 07, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, North Africa, Tunisia

Over 130 Roman inscriptions and a fascinating tale of a city’s evolution have been uncovered by Polish archaeologists in the ancient site of Mustis, in northern Tunisia.

The Latin text describes the founding of temples and other public buildings, names inscribed on tombstones and other everyday matters of the bustling city’s inhabitants, telling the story of what was important enough for them, to record it in stone [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The team from Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, in cooperation with Tunisian National Heritage Institute finished their work a month ago and are now publishing their findings.

Mustis, or Musti, was an ancient metropolis with rural suburbs covering the area of over 34 ha. It was established by Numidian tribes, which formed an ancient kingdom conquered by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC. A Roman colony was founded there, probably for the army veterans commanded by the famous general Gaius Marius.

Mustis was an ancient metropolis with rural suburbs covering the area of over 34 ha [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The Numidian settlement bloomed into a Roman metropolis with numerous public structures such as temples dedicated to Pluto, Apollo and Ceres, Triumph Arcs, thermae, villas built for the most prominent citizens and later on even an early medieval Christian basilica. Ruins of the buildings stand tall until today.

Professor Tomasz Waliszewski, who leads the mission, told PAP: "Our epigraphic team has already inventoried over 130 Latin inscriptions from Roman times, and there are many more.”

Mission leader Professor Tomasz Waliszewski said: 'The richness of these inscriptions can also be seen in numbers - we estimate that there are over 500 Latin inscriptions in the Mustis area and nearby - it's really a lot, even for Africa Proconsularis' [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The Latin text describes the founding of temples and other public buildings, names inscribed on tombstones and other everyday matters of the bustling city’s inhabitants, telling the story of what was important enough for them, to record it in stone.

"The richness of these inscriptions can also be seen in numbers - we estimate that there are over 500 Latin inscriptions in the Mustis area and nearby - it's really a lot, even for Africa Proconsularis,” added Waliszewski.

The team from Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, in cooperation with Tunisian National Heritage Institute finished their work a month ago and are now publishing their findings [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province which covered today’s Tunisia and partially Libya. The region was highly urbanized, with trade routes running from Carthage to Theveste in today's Algeria.

Apart from its significance in terms of communication and transport, the region was very fertile – grain, olive and vines were cultivated there, leading to a rapid enrichment from 1st to 3rd century AD. Similar to other Roman outposts in Africa, Mustis, located 120 km from Carhage, suffered a crisis due to Vandal invasion and rule Vandals (5th - 6th century).

Musti or Mustis was an ancient city and bishopric in the Roman province of Proconsular Africa, now in northern Tunisia [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

The last excavated objects found in the city come from 12th century, which is suspected to be the end of its decline, though exact history remains unknown. Apart from the numerous Latin inscriptions, the excavations shed new life on the Roman urbanization of the region.

The settlers from Italia, rather than build their own cities, lived together with the local populace, building their structures over the already existing ones, leading to a mingling of cultures with Roman as the dominant one.

The last excavated objects found in the city come from 12th century, which is suspected to be the end of its decline, though exact history remains unknown [Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

"Roman remains were simply too spectacular compared to the poor Numidian homes. Perhaps, moreover, we are also wrong and new research will show that the Numidian culture of pre-Roman Africa was much richer, drawing inspiration from the surrounding Punic and Greek world, " wonders Prof. Waliszewski.

The ruins of Mustis were popular with travellers from the late nineteenth century, however only limited reconstruction and archaeological work has been done there. Three temples and a city gate were partially rebuilt, while the inscriptions point to the presence of eleven temples.

Geomagnetic studies near the Arch of Gordian III in Mustis[Credit: Mustis Archaeological Project/Facebook]

Epigraphic studies of local Latin inscriptions allowed the researchers to learn more about the city’s history.

Author: Joanna Jasinka | Source: The First News [November 07, 2019]

'Everything is stolen from us': Tunisians fight to preserve cultural heritage

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on June 19, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Heritage, North Africa, Tunisia

Standing near the shrine of the Sufi saint Sidi Boughanem in western Tunisia, Karim points to the earth below his feet.

Ruins of the Roman City of Sbeitla Sufetla and the three temples to Jupiter, Mierva and Juno Tunisia [Credit: Reuters]

"There are stairs under the ground," he said. "We started digging, but we had to stop because someone called the police."

At the foot of a mountain covered with Roman villas and antique olive oil factories, the shrine sits atop buried structures and catacombs that date back to the Roman and Byzantine periods.

Archaeological sites such as this one in the region of Kasserine are often looted or damaged during illegal night-time excavations by people looking for goods to sell on, said Karim, a local historian from the nearby town of Foussana.

Farmers also stumble across antiques by accident while planting crops, he added, and other people who go digging on their own land in the hope of finding artefacts they can sell.

Karim takes part in these digs out of curiosity. But his colleagues are hunting for treasures, he said. "There are multiple groups (that do this)," said Karim, whose name has been changed for his safety. "It is happening almost on a daily basis."

The looting of archaeological sites is a longstanding problem in Tunisia, said Yasser Jrad, head of the seized objects department at the National Heritage Institute. Objects of significant historical and cultural value often end up on the European market and in the homes of Tunisia's rich and powerful, he explained.

The issue was brought into the spotlight in 2011 when Tunisia's ousted autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, currently exiled in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in the first of several trials for a range of crimes, including possession of archaeological artefacts.

In 2017, the Tunisian authorities seized a rare 15th-century Torah scroll they thought was being smuggled to Europe. More recently, in March customs seized 600 antique coins dating from the 2nd century from a car in the coastal town of Sfax.

Figures from the National Heritage Institute, which is tasked with protecting and recording the country's artefacts, show that the team has received more than 25,000 recovered archaeological items since the 2011 uprising.

Built as an entrance to the Roman city of Haidra, the Arc de Septime Severe in Tunisia was transformed into a surveillance fort by the Byzantine rulers. The walls surrounding the arc were bombed by a Bey  from Constantine who believed that there were treasures inside  [Credit: Reuters/Layli Foroudi]

Today, the institute gets more than double the number of reports for Kasserine than it did before the uprising, said Mohamed Ben Nejma, head of the region for the institute, adding that the instability and chaos of conflict often provides a window for archaeological looting.

But he also attributed the increase in recovered objects to the authorities' more serious approach to the illicit antiquities trade.

"It might have been partly to do with state interests," said Mr Jrad. "Especially, since we discovered pieces stolen from our (national) sites in the houses of Ben Ali and his family.”

The western region of Kasserine, where the shrine of Sidi Boughanem is located, is one of the most marginalised parts of the country – with government figures showing about one in four people unemployed, far higher than the 15 per cent unemployment rate for the country as a whole.

It is also one of the most archaeologically rich. There are four major sites located in an area of 8,000 square kilometres, and the land is peppered with architectural ruins and antique stones.

Bigger sites are guarded around the clock, according to the National Heritage Institute, while less significant sites have security guards during the day. But the sheer number of small sites makes it impossible to keep an eye on all of them, said Mr Nejma.

Ridha Shili, an expert in national heritage promotion with the University of Tunis, said the lack of proper excavation projects and cultural investment leaves the Kasserine region open to looting.

"It is kind of a virgin region," said Mr Shili, pointing out that his hometown of Thala alone has about 350 archaeological sites. "The state prefers for (these sites) to remain hidden because we don't have the means to protect them," he said. When a new site is discovered, instead of guarding it or moving the artefacts to somewhere secure, "the state documents it, they take photos and then they put the earth back over it", Mr Shili added.

As she surveys sites around Foussana for her research, Wafa Mouelhi, an archaeology masters student at the University of Tunis, takes pictures whenever she sees that someone has been digging. "You see holes, you notice with the placement of stones that someone has been there," she said. "People are looking for statues or gold and jewellery."

Karim and a friend from the area stand besides an illegally excavated grave in Tunisia, empty except for an ulna [Credit: Reuters/Layli Foroudi]

Mouelhi and other residents inform the local authorities about illegal excavations. In January, she caught someone from the town attempting to dig up a mosaic and ceramics from a Roman site that contains a church.

Matthew Hobson of the UK-based Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project, said multiple factors need to be taken into account when it comes to protecting heritage sites from theft, which is often driven by poverty and political instability.

"There are economic reasons (for looting)," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Tunis. "The blame should not be put on the people who are trying to get by day-to-day, but the persons who are furnishing these collections."

Unlike in Libya or Egypt, the antiquities trade in Tunisia is fairly small and disorganised, according to a local policeman, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job. "It's just pocket money, people sell things for less than they are worth," he said.

Abdelbaki Idoudi, a civil servant from Foussena, said the country's unprotected artefacts are fair game. Citizens have the right to benefit from rogue archaeological digs. "The state left of all of (the artefacts) and doesn't look after them," he said. "I'm for the practice because people can profit, it can help people get some money from their (heritage)."

Others, such as Ayoub Sayhi, a 22-year-old amateur filmmaker from Thala, called on the government to do more to care for the country's ancient objects. To Mr Sayhi, the looting of Kasserine's antiquities was just another symptom of what he saw as the state's neglect of the region. "(My film) is to get the government to do something about this region because it is poor even though it is rich in natural resources," he said.

"Everything is stolen from us, both in the day and in the night."

Author: Layli Foroudi | Source: Reuters [June 19, 2019]

Explaining the exceptional economic resilience of the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 03, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Earth Science, North Africa, Tunisia

Through two recent scientific publications in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Quaternary International, Belgian researchers from the University of Liège and French, Tunisian and English researchers, provide unpublished and essential information to understand the exceptional economic resilience of the Carthaginians during the Punic wars.

View of the archaeological site of Utica  [Credit: © Elisa Pleuger]

The analysis of a series of deep cores taken from the Medjerda delta around the city of Utica shows the continued exploitation of former lead and silver mines in the Carthaginian hinterland during periods of conflict, these mining resources allowing Carthage to pay war compensation and finance armies despite the loss of its traditional sources of money in the Mediterranean.

The Punic Wars (264-146 BC) have been the subject of numerous studies focusing on the most sensational aspects of the conflict between Rome and Carthaginian civilization for the domination of the western Mediterranean, but few have addressed this paradox: the economic resilience of Carthage despite successive defeats, the loss of mining territories and the imposition of war reparations.

To explain this paradox, researchers have used geoarchaeological methods to solve an archaeological and historical problem. The researchers drilled cores between 15 and 24 metres deep in the Medjerda delta around the city of Utica, which, according to literary tradition, was one of the first three Phoenician foundations in the western Mediterranean around 1100 BC.

Utica was an important trading city located on a promontory facing the sea. Over the centuries, it has lost its access to the sea and its ports have been overwhelmed by the activity of the Medjerda wadi, which flows south of the city. Despite more than a century of investigations by archaeologists and associated researchers, the location of the city's Phoenician and Roman ports remains unknown, buried under sediments resulting from the progradation of the Medjerda.

Portion of the core cleaned for study and sampling  [Credit: © Elisa Pleuger]

The cores have made it possible to go back to the 6th millennium BC (radiocarbon dating) and to characterize the different sedimentary layers, in particular by means of mineralogical and geochemical analyses. The use of a recently developed tracer in geoarchaeology, that of lead isotopes applied to the study of paleo-pollutions, has provided particularly important data for the chemical characterization of the different layers.

The results highlight the existence of a long seafront north of the promontory of Utica during the Phoenician and Roman periods. A deep marine environment is documented in the ancient bay in the 6th millennium BC and the depth of the water column along the northern facade was still 2 metres around the 4th - 3rd century BC. Another coring east of the Kalaat El Andalous promontory showed the possibility that this area was a protected port during the Phoenician and Roman periods.

At the same time, the data provide evidence of former lead and silver mines in the Carthaginian hinterland and present an operating chronology that appears to follow the main periods of geopolitical instability of the time. The first phase of mining activity recorded in the sediments of Utica took place during the Greek-Punic wars (480-307 BC), then during the Punic wars (264-146 BC).

During the Punic Wars, data suggest that Carthage was still able to pay compensation and finance armies despite the loss of its traditional sources of money in the Mediterranean. Research shows that the exploitation of Tunisian metal ores between the second half of the fourth century and the beginning of the third century BC contributed to the emergence of the Punic currency and the development of the Carthaginian economy.

View of the archaeological site in the Medjerda delta  [Credit: © Elisa Pleuger]

These scientific articles are a remarkable illustration of the contribution of geoarchaeology to the understanding of the interactions between a society and its environment over the course of history.

Source: Université de Liège [May 03, 2019]

New finds at the Punic Tophet of Carthage

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 03, 2018 / comment : 0 Archaeology, North Africa, Tunisia

Full of history, Tunisia has not yet revealed all its secrets. A recent discovery in the remains of ancient Carthage is proof of this. Archaeologists have discovered new urns and objects that have been carefully buried for centuries while digging under a piece of land on Jugurtha Street, which borders the current Carthaginian Tophet.

Credit: Tunisie.co

This new discovery which unveils a new piece of the ancient history of the country was conducted by a team 100% Tunisian, says the head of the excavation project and research officer at the National Heritage Institute of Tunis, Imed Ben Jerbania.

Credit: Tunisie.co

"It's a great achievement," he said, pointing out that many foreigners have gotten their hands on this area, but never Tunisians. He pointed out that the last excavation was conducted by Americans back in the 1970s.


According to Jerbania, this monument is of great importance. It traces the history of Carthage, from its birth to its fall. "In the Tophet, one finds everything, from ceramics, bones, inscriptions with the identities of the dedicators, their offerings... in short, an insight into the way of life of the Carthaginians and a precise idea of their religious beliefs."

Credit: Tunisie.co

The Carthage tophet, also called Salammbô tophet, is an ancient sacred area dedicated to the Phoenician deities Tanit and Baal located in the Carthaginian district of Salammbô, in Tunisia, near the Punic ports.

Credit: Tunisie.co

This tophet, "hybrid of sanctuary and necropolis", contains a large number of graves of children who, according to some interpretations, were sacrificed or buried in this place after their untimely death.

Credit: Tunisie.co

This "painstaking work" was started in 2014 by a large research team from the National Heritage Institute of Tunisia (Utica Archeological Team) when a house owner in the Carthage area wanted to do some work in his garden and uncovered urns and jars more than 2,500 years old.

Source: HuffPost [August 03, 2018]

Did the Chicxulub asteroid knock Earth's thermometer out of the ballpark?

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 24, 2018 / comment : 0 Earth Science, Fossils, Palaeoclimate, Palaeontology, Tunisia

When the Chicxulub asteroid smashed into Earth 65 million years ago, the event drove an abrupt and long-lasting era of global warming, with a rapid temperature increase of 5°Celsius (C) that endured for roughly 100,000 years, a new study reports. The monumental event is a rare case where Earth's systems were perturbed at a rate greater than what's occurring now from human activity. It therefore provides valuable insights into what may happen from sudden, extreme environmental changes.

The Chicxulub asteroid hit what is now Mexico [Credit: Joe Tucciarone/Science Photo Library]

The aftereffects of the Chicxulub impact remain debated, with some scientists advocating that soot within the atmosphere blocked out the sun sufficiently to drive global cooling; others suggest that carbon released from the Earth's crust into the atmosphere upon the asteroid's impact, as well as carbon from wildfires, had a warming effect. To better understand how the temperature changed during this time, Ken MacLeod and colleagues analyzed a robust collection of well-preserved, sand grain-sized remains of fish teeth, scales and bone from a site in Tunisia; these samples retain oxygen isotopic signatures that reveal the temperature at the time that the related animal was alive.

The authors were able to collect samples from sediments that span the time leading up to the Chicxulub impact, until long afterwards. Based on their analysis, they propose that global temperatures increased by about 5°C and did not cool to previous values for roughly 100,000 years after the impact, a magnitude and duration of warming closely matching levels of carbon dioxide that some types of analyses have estimated were emitted during the same period. MacLeod et al. do note some discrepancy between their results and concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide derived from other kinds of analyses, which predict a more modest increase.

The study is published in the journal Science.

Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science [May 24, 2018]

Scientists find 10 new archaeological sites in Tunisia using orbiting eye

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 06, 2018 / comment : 0 Archaeology, North Africa, Tunisia

Chinese scientists recently discovered 10 new archaeological sites in Tunisia dating to ancient Rome using Chinese space-based remote sensing technology.

The map showing 10 new archaeological sites in Tunisia [Credit: Xinhua]

The archaeological sites are located in three Tunisian provinces - Gafsa, Tataouine and Medenine - Tunisian Culture Minister Mohamed Zine El-Abidine said at a recent news conference.

The discoveries include two Roman forts, three giant water basins, an irrigation system, a cemetery and three fortified Roman military roads lined with walls and watchtowers.

It is the first time Chinese remote-sensing technology has been used to locate archaeological sites in other countries, said Wang Xinyuan, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth.

Wang, a leader of the effort, said a team of Chinese, Tunisian, Italian and Pakistani scientists found the sites under a project called the Digital Belt and Road.

"The project is monumental in improving coordination and cooperation between Chinese and foreign scientific communities," he said.

Scientists jointly conducting the archaeological investigation [Credit: Xinhua]

The new sites shed light on how the ancient Roman military defended its southern borders and supported its logistics, Wang said. Tunisia was also part of the Maritime Silk Road and home to many major Roman ports, hence the sites will allow better understanding of ancient trade routes and ecological change, he said.

Bai Guangming, a cultural counselor from the embassy of the People's Republic of China in Tunisia, said China's advanced remote sensing technologies will provide great scientific support for strengthening cultural exchanges between countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Remote sensing refers to photography, infrared imaging, lasers and other methods to gather information from an object or natural phenomena without making physical contact.

It has been widely used in the military and most Earth science disciplines, including geology, hydrology and ecology.

Scientists jointly conducting the archaeological investigation [Credit: Xinhua]

In 1906, Lieutenant Philip Henry Sharpe of the British Royal Engineers pioneered the use of aerial photography to study ancient monuments by taking the first aerial shots of Stonehenge from a balloon.

"Remote sensing technology provides a nonintrusive yet extremely accurate method of examining fragile archaeological sites, and it saves time, money and manpower because less field work is needed," Wang said.

Remote sensing technologies boomed in the 1960s with the introduction of satellite-and aircraft-based technologies that allow scientists to collect even more abstract data such as temperature, wind speed and humidity over a greater area.

"With these data, scientists and preservationists can formulate more accurate and effective plans to repair or protect archaeological sites," Wang said. "Remote sensing is a unique and effective way of finding obscured artifacts in the wild."

Source: China Daily [May 06, 2018]