Kingdoms and Monuments of Afre Kh: The Ancient Ruins of Qart-hadasht AKA Carthage (Tunisia)

One of the world’s most famous ancient ruins is the city of Qart hadasht (dubbed Carthage by Europeans who found it difficult to pronounce the original name), Tunisia in North Africa. The city came to prominence in 814 BC when Phoenician Princess Elyssa (known by locals as Dido – the wandering one) who was an exiled princess of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre.

The original founders of Qart-hadasht were local merchants and farmers, not refugees but the Phoenician settlers found in the city a thriving trade in gold from Senegal and tin from the Atlantic coast to Europe.  As Qart-hadasht grew, it caught the eyes of imperialists from Europe. Soon the city was caught in an unending spiral of wars between the Greeks and the Carthaginians. Carthage’s location as a route with inlets into the northern and southern Mediterranean gave it an advantage over neighboring cities, as ships pass between Sicily and the northern coast of Africa. This boosted Carthage’s economy giving it great power and wealth.

Carthage was one of the largest influences in ancient Africa. Its walls were large and impenetrable, 23 miles (37 km) in length, longer than the walls of comparable cities. Originally ruled by kings, in the sixth century, Rome imposed annually elected supreme magistrates, the suffetes (“judges”) to administer the colony. This form of government became the forerunner to Roman consuls.   The city had a huge burial ground, religious area, marketplaces, council house, towers and a theatre and was divided into four equally sized residential areas with the same layout. Roughly in the middle of the city stood a high citadel called the Byrsa (the walled citadel above the harbour in ancient Carthage).

At the height of its glory, the influence of Carthage stretched from Gades in Iberia to Carthago Nova in South-west Europe, across the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily into the entire coast of North Africa. This power was viewed as a threat by Rome, leading to the 3 Punic wars fought between Rome and Carthage between 264 B.C and 146 B.C that brought down Carthage. The first war lasted 23 years, the second 15 years, and the third and final war ended after 96 years when Rome razed Carthage to the ground and sold the population into slavery.

Perhaps Carthage’s most famous citizen is Hannibal, the great military tactician and strategist in European history, sworn enemy of Rome and one of the greatest generals of antiquity, thus named along with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pyrrhus of Epirus.

In February 1985, Ugo Vetere, the mayor of Rome, and Chedly Klibi, the mayor of Carthage, signed a symbolic treaty “officially” ending the conflict between their cities, which had been supposedly extended by the lack of a peace treaty for more than 2,100 years.

Carthage is a popular tourist location now integrated into a wealthy area of suburban Tunis.