The Archaeological Site of Utica: A Phoenician Port and Roman City in Tunisia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Tunisia
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Iron Age, Classical
- Civilizations
- Carthaginian, Phoenician, Roman
- Site type
- City
On this page17 sections
History
The Archaeological Site of Utica in Tunisia preserves the remains of a Phoenician-founded port that developed into a Carthaginian ally and a leading Roman city. Utica stood on the maritime route linking Phoenicia with the Straits of Gibraltar and the Atlantic, helping to move commodities such as tin. Classical writers, including Pliny the Elder, placed its foundation in 1101 BC, although archaeological evidence has so far confirmed occupation no earlier than the eighth century BC.
Phoenician foundation and Carthaginian rule
Utica was traditionally regarded as the first North African colony established by the Phoenicians, the seafaring communities of the Levant whose settlers founded settlements around the Mediterranean. It was more than three centuries older than Carthage and maintained political and economic independence from Carthage until at least 540 BC. Even while retaining this autonomy, Utica sent an annual tribute to Tyre.
By the fifth or fourth century BC, Carthage had brought Utica under its control. The older port retained a privileged position as an ally. It first supported Carthage in conflicts with the Greek cities of Sicily and later cooperated with it in the struggle against Rome. During the revolt of unpaid Carthaginian mercenaries after the First Punic War, Utica initially refused to join the uprising. Libyan forces under Spendius and Matho besieged Utica and nearby Hippocritae, but the Carthaginian generals Hanno and Hamilcar lifted the siege. Utica later defected during the conflict and surrendered to Carthage.
Alliance with Rome and the provincial capital
Utica allied itself with Rome during the Third Punic War, the conflict that ended Carthage’s power, and surrendered shortly before the war began in 150 BC. After Carthage’s defeat, Rome rewarded the city with territory extending from Carthage to Hippo Diarrhytus. Utica was also recognized among the free and immune cities of Phoenician institutions, retaining a privileged civic position within the newly transformed political order.
Rome made Utica the capital of the new province of Africa. The provincial governor’s residence and a small garrison were established there, while Roman citizens settled in the city for commercial activity. The provincial government moved to rebuilt Carthage during the reign of Augustus, but Utica remained one of the leading cities of the province.
Utica became involved in the Roman Civil War in 49 BC. At the Battle of Utica, Gaius Scribonius Curio, a general of Julius Caesar, defeated Pompeian forces commanded by Publius Attius Varus and supported by Numidian troops. Curio drove Varus back into Utica before withdrawing.
After the Pompeian defeat at Thapsus in 46 BC, Cato the Younger and other Pompeian senators fled to Utica. Cato arranged the escape of senators and others who wished to leave, then killed himself rather than accept Caesar’s clemency. The citizens honored him as a savior and benefactor, gave his body an elaborate escort, and buried him near the sea. He later received the epithet Uticensis, meaning “of Utica.” Gustave Flaubert’s 1862 novel Salammbô draws on the Mercenary War and includes the siege of Utica.
Municipal and colonial status
Around 36 BC, under Octavian, Utica received municipal rights and became Municipium Julium Uticense. A municipium was a Roman city whose inhabitants held Roman civic rights under a defined legal arrangement. Utica’s inhabitants were enrolled in the Quirina tribe, one of Rome’s citizen voting tribes. The city was later promoted to Roman colonial status under Septimius Severus, acquiring the civic organization associated with a Roman colony.
The city’s position changed as the mouth of the Medjerda River silted up. Alluvial deposits filled the old gulf and progressively damaged the harbor, leaving Utica increasingly isolated among marshy land. The city extended its existence by intensifying cultivation across its agricultural territory, but its importance continued to decline as the former gulf and port filled with sediment. By the reign of Septimius Severus, Utica and the surrounding area east of the Fossatum Africae had undergone extensive Romanization. The Fossatum Africae was a Roman frontier installation in North Africa made principally of a long defensive ditch and associated structures.
Christian, Vandal, and Byzantine Utica
Christianity was present at Utica by the middle of the third century. In 252, a group of martyrs was executed at a place called Massa Candida, where a basilica was later built. Bishop Aurelius represented Utica at the Council of Carthage in 256, a meeting that addressed how Christians who had lapsed during persecution should be treated.
More than a dozen bishops are associated with the ancient diocese, an ecclesiastical district governed by a bishop. Maurus was accused of apostasy during the persecution under Diocletian in 303. Victorius attended the Council of Arles in 314, Quietus attended the Council of Carthage in 349, and Victorius II represented Nicene Christianity while Gedudus represented the Donatists at the Conference of Carthage in 411. Donatism was a Christian movement that rejected clergy considered compromised during persecution. Florentius attended the Synod of Carthage in 484 and was exiled by the Vandal king Huneric. Faustinianus attended the Council of Carthage in 525, Flavianus opposed Monothelitism at the Council of Carthage in 646, and Potentinus, later exiled to Spain, attended the Council of Toledo in 684. Monothelitism was a seventh-century doctrine asserting that Christ had one will. Gallonianus was associated with the Council of Carthage in 419, although his attribution to Utica remains uncertain.
Vandals commanded by Gaiseric captured Utica in 439. Byzantine forces recaptured it in 534, and the city was ultimately destroyed around 700 after the Arab conquest. The ancient diocese disappeared after the conquest. Its name was revived in 1516, when Pedro del Campo became bishop of a recreated Diocese of Utica during the period of Spanish control. The title later continued as a titular, or in partibus, diocese, preserving the name for a bishop serving another ecclesiastical mission.
Excavation and interpretation
Nineteenth-century excavations by C. Borgia, Auguste Daux, N. Davis, and I. Hérisson sought archaeological objects for the Louvre, the British Museum, and a museum in Leiden. More systematic investigations began in the twentieth century under Pierre Cintas, Alexandre Lézine, and Paul-Albert Février. Later research was undertaken by a Tunisian-English team and by Tunisia’s National Heritage Institute.
The Punic necropolises were excavated chiefly by Abbé Moulard between 1923 and 1925, Pierre Cintas between 1948 and 1958, and Fethi Chelbi in 1990. The National Museum of Utica, inaugurated in 1990, preserves material from Punic and Roman excavations. The archaeological site lies in Bizerte Governorate and is regarded as the largest archaeological site in that region.
Remains
Ancient Utica stood near the mouth of the Medjerda River and the Mediterranean, between Carthage and Hippo Diarrhytus. The changing river mouth later moved the former harbor inland. The surviving ruins now occupy a low hill roughly 10 kilometers from the modern shoreline, while the site is also described as about 20 to 30 kilometers from Bizerte and about 30 kilometers from Tunis. The archaeological area combines Punic cemeteries and domestic remains with a Roman urban complex of streets, houses, villas, water installations, public buildings, and mosaics.
Punic cemeteries and domestic remains
Punic necropolises
A Punic necropolis lies northwest of the Roman villas. The cemeteries date from the twelfth to the second century BC and include graves cut into tufa, monolithic stone sarcophagi with matching lids, and small limestone coffers with pitched-roof covers. The coffers held cremated remains and were placed at the bottoms of niches cut into the ground. Some Punic sarcophagi lie approximately 6.1 meters below the Roman level.
One sun-dried mud-brick sarcophagus still contained the skeleton of a young girl. It is preserved in a small protected room at the site. Funerary material from these cemeteries includes prayerful funerary stelae, small limestone ash sarcophagi, terracotta vessels, amphorae, lamps, jewelry, amulets, bone and ivory objects, and ostrich-egg shells painted with human features. A double-sided engraved razor depicts Hercules and the bull on one face and Scylla on the other.
Punic houses and water installations
Punic domestic remains beneath the Roman levels include mud-brick walls set on rubble-stone foundations. Their floors were made with pavimenta punica, a lime-based surface containing crushed tile and limestone fragments. Another building type appears in the house known as the House of the Historiated Capitals, whose walls were formed from sandstone blocks from El Haouaria and coated with stucco.
Punic cisterns were coated with waterproof plaster. Their coverings used rows of cylindrical amphorae arranged in a pitched-roof formation. The museum’s Punic collection also includes an imported Attic black-figure lekythos showing Achilles, Punic red-slip vessels, carnelian scarabs depicting Pegasus, a crystal scarab showing an archer, and a gold ring representing Baal Hammon seated on a sphinx-shaped throne. Necklaces, Egyptian-divinity amulets, a jewelry box, a comb, and a chronological series of commercial amphorae further illustrate the material culture associated with the ancient settlement.
Roman streets and residences
Roman houses accessible to the public occupy the northeastern part of the site. Excavated between 1948 and 1958, they follow a regular cadastral grid organized along east-west and north-south axes. Its principal streets included a decumanus, the main east-west street of a Roman town, and a cardo, its main north-south street.
House of the Cascade
The House of the Cascade is one of Utica’s largest and richest residences. A two-leaf doorway opens into a vestibule and a sequence of corridors. In the central corridor, a rectangular basin is paved with a mosaic showing several species of fish. Two marble pillars rising from the basin supported a bowl.
Two side corridors lead to a peristyle, a court or garden surrounded by a colonnade. Its pavement surrounds a viridarium, or planted garden, centered on a basin with eight semicircular niches and two rectangular niches. The peristyle opens onto a triclinium, a formal Roman dining room, paved in opus sectile, a technique using cut pieces of stone fitted into patterns. The pavement combines yellow Chemtou marble with green Euboean marble.
Two rooms beside the dining room contain polychrome mosaics and garden plots with fountains. One fountain was built as a cascade, with a basin paved by a mosaic depicting a net-fishing scene. The northern corner of the house contained a carriage shed, while the southern corner held a horse stable with feeding troughs cut into the stone.
House of the Historiated Capitals
The House of the Historiated Capitals has a monumental facade with three large doors. A pavement runs along the northern decumanus before the entrances. The doors open onto the portico of a peristyle bordered by twelve columns, including two that remain well preserved. Their figured capitals carry busts of Hercules, Minerva, and Apollo Citharoedus.
House of the Hunt
A doorway at the House of the Hunt leads to an elongated courtyard and then to a corridor reaching a second courtyard. This courtyard is paved with polychrome marble opus sectile and enclosed by a peristyle with reused columns. Mosaics decorated its porticoes with scenes of a departure for the hunt, bird-catchers, deer hunting, and a return from the hunt. These panels are preserved in the local museum.
House of the Treasure
The House of the Treasure is arranged around a peristyle with a semicircular basin. The basin has a polychrome mosaic in a scale pattern, excavated in 1957. A deposit of coins discovered by Paul-Albert Février gave the residence its name.
Forum and public buildings
A quadrangular area measuring approximately 50 by 110 meters has been identified as Utica’s forum novum, or new forum. Statues and inscribed objects are associated with the area, as is a row of shops bordering a broad passage. The passage was formerly paved with white Proconnesian marble. A temple, probably dedicated to Jupiter, stood west of it. Large baths, theatres, a circus, and an amphitheatre have also been identified within the Roman urban complex.
The museum’s Roman collection includes five panels of hunting mosaics from a private residence, altars dedicated to Cybele and the emperor Augustus, a statue base dedicated to Sulpicia Dymiana, and an architrave dedicated to the deified emperor Claudius. Roman marble statuary represents Asclepius, a musical satyr, a child in a toga, Hercules with his attributes, and the sleeping Ariadne.
Roman funerary material
Terracotta objects recovered from Roman tombs include an imported thin-walled bowl, small containers for unguents, and statuettes, including one depicting a unicorn. Together with the mosaics, inscriptions, altars, sculpture, and domestic remains, these finds illustrate the range of religious, funerary, artistic, and household material preserved from Roman Utica.
