Afr Archaeol Rev (2009) 26:137154

DOI 10.1007/s10437-009-9051-7
O R I G I N A L A RT I C L E

The Locus of Carthage: Compounding

Geographical Logic
Patrick Hunt

Published online: 30 May 2009

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract North Africas Phoenician city of Carthage was above all a logical place
from which the well-informed maritime Phoenicians colonized and controlled the
Western Mediterranean. The leading important factors affecting the founding of
Carthage were mostly geographical: overall centrality along the southern coast of the
Western Mediterranean; proximity to the island bridge of Italy via Sicily; nascent
oceanographic knowledge of water currents and wind gyres as well as shoals such as
the Gulf of Sidra and the shelter of the Gulf of Tunis itself; and important local
topography and religious landmarks.
Keywords Carthage . Geography . North Africa . Maritime . Topography .
Mediterranean . Wind and current gyres . Navigation . Sacred landmarks

Introduction
How did the Phoenicians choose the location of Carthage on the coastline of North
Africa, a settlement that would become their most important colony? The location of
CarthageQart Hadasht or new city in Punic (as a colony of Tyre, the old city)
was no accident, chosen only after several centuries of maritime travel and considered
observations of maritime and coastal topography. Few cities in history shared the
inseparable relationship of Carthage to the sea; as Strabo (n.d.) said, Carthage is a ship
at anchor. Although Carthage was not the oldest landfall or Phoenician colony in
North Africa, it certainly became the most important. The Punic Wars proved that if
anyone could break Carthages command of the Western Mediterranean Sea, its
empire could not long survive. But ships and navies need good ports, and in antiquity
few harbors and their surrounding urban locations have been so carefully chosen.

P. Hunt (*)
Stanford University, Stanford, USA
e-mail: phunt@stanford.edu

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What makes this new study timelybuilding upon but departing from worthy prior
studies (Warmington 1960; Fevrier 1964; Bullard 1978; Moscati 1992; Lancel 1992;
Aubet 2001; Barkaoui 2003; Niemeyer 2006)is the detailed consideration given to
the factor of oceanography. The Phoenicians would have known experientially the
marine environment of sea currents and winds relative to Carthage in its double gulf.
Also new is a historic rationale for local topography that also incorporates sacred
landscape reminiscent of Phoenicia and Baal traditions of sacred mountains, where
Baal was victorious over the sea god Yam.
Geography is often a powerful force in shaping history, but this factor is not
always properly credited. The famous Classical story tells of emigrant queen Dido
claiming the Byrsa hill above the bay, and tricking the local people, who grudgingly
allowed her only the amount of land an ox hide (byrsa in Greek) would cover. In
legend she managed to cut the ox hide into one long strip to measure out a much
more sizable demesne than her Libyan neighbors preferred (Virgil, n.d. Aeneid
I.33568; Diodorus Siculus n.d. XVII, 40.3; Strabo n.d. XVII.3.15). The tales
cobbled from many myths and Classical accounts such as Timaeus, Pompeius Trogus,
Marcus Junianus Justin (Pease 1935)reveal the enterprise and craft for which the
Phoenicians were respected or envied, but they reveal little of geographical history
(Gifford et al. 1992; Little and Yorke 1975; Yorke et al. 1976). The second century
BCE Greek historian Polybius (n.d.) records the position and geography of Carthage
in its local coordinates, implying without amplifying some geographical factors in
the founding of Carthage (Polybius n.d., History I.73.36):
Carthage is situated at the inmost point of a gulf into which it protrudes on a
strip of land, almost entirely surrounded on one side by the sea and on the
other by a lake. The corridor of land linking [Carthage] to Africa is 25 stades
(4.5 km).
The inmost point and other details such as almost entirely surrounded [by
sea] do not seem to be lost on Polybius (n.d.) for defensibility, but it is reasonable
to expect that a historian who went specifically to the places about which he wrote
would know this inmost point was the optimum location for both weather
protection, and natural safety by being protected by water on several sides. The
geographer Strabo (n.d.) (XVII.3.14) also noted that Carthage was situated on a
kind of peninsula, which would be a natural defensive advantage if ever attacked by
a land-based invasion. Scipio Africanus illustrates this by invading nearby Utica in
204-203 BCE and attacking it first rather than the larger and more defensible
Carthage, as Polybius (n.d.) noted (XIV.1.15.15).
Carthage was apparently founded around 814 BCE by refugees from Tyre if the
ancient sources like C. Velleius Paterculus (n.d.) (Roman History I. 6.4) are
chronologically reliable. Velleius Paterculus (n.d.), 1st century CE Roman
historiographer, says Carthage was founded 65 years before Rome, which can be
fairly reliably dated to around 750 BCE. In this period, 65 years before the
founding of Rome, Carthage was established by the Tyrian Elissa, by some authors
called Dido. Carthages founding is also recorded in many other ancient Classical
texts including Flavius Josephus in the 1st century CE, Against Apion I.108, where
he says Carthage was founded 143 years after Solomon built the Temple in
Jerusalemwhich Solomonic legend placed around 960 BCE, thus dating it around

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817 BCE. In Apion II.17 Josephus then says, in contradiction, that Carthage began in
the first year of the seventh Olympiad, placing it about 748 BCE, but most historians
accept the earlier circa 814 date.
Although some now debate the earlier date, suggesting Utica is not much older
than Carthage, Classical sources state earlier Phoenicians had colonized the
already-mentioned Utica as a landfall in North Africa as much as 275 years before
just to the north of Carthage, but it was technically just outside the protected inner
Gulf of Tunis. While Utica was also only a smaller trade emporion for centuries, it
was soon outstripped by Carthage as a full-fledged commercial city (Fantar 2007:
25). In every way, the carefully-chosen location of Carthage was an improvement
over Utica.

Geographical Factors
Although the ancient sources are not explicit on geographical factorsand the author does
not espouse simplistic geographic determinismantiquity does reveal considerable
knowledge of geography. In fact, the historical and geographic reasons for locating
Carthage are fairly feasible on examination. First, Carthages position of centrality along
the southern coast of the Western Mediterranean gave it a springboard into both the sea
trade lanes of Western Europe as well as the rest of the Mediterranean eastward (Fig. 1).
Second, Carthages proximity to the island bridge of Italy via Sicily was another

Fig. 1 Map of Mediterranean. Note Carthages position in Western Mediterranean and proximity to Sicily.
(Credit: Al Duncan)

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geographic advantage. Third, the Phoenicians already possessed nascent but extensive
knowledge of oceanographic water currents and gyres as well as wind gyres. The shelter
of the Gulf of Tunis itselfa double gulf with outer and inner dimensionswas
important for the protection of shipping in inclement or unpredictable weather. Fourth,
local topography also played a role in memorable features that may have reminded the
original Tyrians of some of their own native landmarks in their homeland, including
longstanding sacred topography. These were all important factors that led to founding
Carthage where it was, and where it became second only to the Tyrian mother city and
eventually primary city after the fourth century BCE when Alexander conquered Tyre.
Warmington noted in his now dated summary (Warmington 1960: 1314):
When the Phoenicians came to choose sites for their settlements, whether
trading posts or watering and victualling stations for their ships, they looked
first for places easily accessible from the sea but not from a potentially hostile
hinterland, such as off-shore islands or rocky peninsulas with a sandy bay on
which the ships could be beached.
Linder also confirms some of this deliberate harbor strategy (1972: 1634) Recent
research, however, such as that of Ballard and McCann and others off the Skerki
Bank northwest of Sicily and elsewhere, has shown that maritime trade from
Phoenician and Punic sea traffic and continuing through the Roman era also used
direct open deep sea trade, not merely based from island hopping harbors alone as
Warmington noted (McCann et al. 1994; Parker 1996; Ballard et al. 2000). The
Skerki Bank is a subterranean northern extension of the marine North African shelf
where recent underwater surveys and archaeological research has extracted
amphorae and other artifacts from fourth century CE merchant trading ships at
800 m depths. Ballard and others have amply demonstrated that trade moved directly
from Carthage to Rome along the Skerki Bank where north-south and east-west
routes converged, but also where counter-currents meet, suggesting similar trade
routes in antiquity. Maritime trade as early as the eighth century BCE also shows
that Phoenician ships often sailed in deep water beyond sight of land, evidenced in
the Eastern Mediterranean with Phoenician shipwrecks at 400 m depth between
Israel and Egypt (Ballard et al. 2002).
As debarkation points and termini for sea travel, the earlier Phoenician pattern of
naturally sheltered or modified manmade harbors, as Warmington summarized, or
island fortress cities can be found wherever the Phoenicians had their Levant ports at
Tyre, Sidon and old Byblos, or at Karpaz in Cyprus. The Carthaginians repeated this
at ports like Motya (Sicily), Tharros (Sardinia), Sabratha (Libya), Mahdia (Tunisia),
Cartagena (Spain), Benaim (Spain), Ampurias (Spain) and others (Blackman 1982a,
b; A. Haggai 2006). Based in some way on the Punic appreciation for the natural
double gulf of Tunis, the Phoenicians must have been impressed with the options for
harbor selection at Cartagena. Here a perfect deep natural harbor was accessible to
Hasdrubal, who founded a port colony there around 227 BCE in deep water
surrounded by high hills with easy access to nearby silver mines. For anyone sailing
in and out of the port of Cartagena, this provides overall modern corroboration for
Hasdrubals pragmatism and Carthaginian wisdom in topography and geography
(Negueruela 2000). Accessibility and safety were the most important criteria; the
best sea lanes and overall convenience were not far behind. For example, when

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Thutmose III conquered the Levant around 1450 BCE, his first move toward
consolidation was in controlling the harbors: His first step was to secure undisputed
control of the harbors along the Phoenician coast (Casson 1991: 30).
The specific factors mentioned above that helped in determining Carthages
location deserve amplification as follows.

Position in Mediterranean Center

First, the geographic centrality of this African headland in the Mediterranean at the
crossroads made it possible for Carthaginians to move equidistantly east and west.
Centrality also assisted in controlling maritime traffic in the Mediterranean along the
safer stretches of African coast, especially important for sea hegemony on the
Western Mediterranean where access to lesser known mineral resources was vital, as
opposed to the Eastern Mediterranean mineral resources for which competition was
intense with Greek, Egyptian and Levantine claims (Krings 1998).
Ancient geographers like Strabo (n.d.) knew the Mediterranean was basically
divided into two basins, the east and west, and Carthage was at the junction of the
two. One could also travel east or west through the Libyan Sea along the coast of
Libya until Carthage (Strabo n.d., II.5.19) in the strait between Libya and Sicily,
northwest around Sicilys northern coast, or westward with the western
Mediterranean also beginning and opening at this same junction.
From Carthage it is also an equidistant directionor at least time spent as
counted in sailing dayswestward to the metal-rich colony of silver and lead
producing Tartessos in Southern Spain (Diodorus Siculus n.d., V.35) or eastward
to the old Phoenician homeland of the Levant in the east. Even against contrary
winds, meaning that Spain is closer than Phoenicia in space if not in time, it was
normally around a weeks journey in both directions in the primary Mediterranean
sailing season from April to September. Casson records seven days and seven
nights journey from Carthage to the Pillars of Herakles at the Atlantic mouth
(Casson 1995: 2823). Also setting out eastward from Carthage along southern
Sicily with favorable westerly winds, it was about the same length of journey to
Egypt. Centrality of Carthage was a significant necessity to expanding Punic
culture, which sent out its own colonies along the African coast both east and west
as well as, for example, the important mineral source colonies like Cartagena, in
Eastern Spain.

Proximity to Sicily, Steppingstone to Europe

Second, by its proximity to Sicily as a connecting island mass, Carthage was the
logical location from which to employ this large island as a land bridge to possible
trade resources and markets in Italy and Europe. As Soren et al. note, Carthage was
deliberately situated at the crossroads of the central Mediterranean (1990: 13). The
direct distance to southwestern Sicily (Cape Lilybaeum) from the outer edge of the
Gulf of Tunis at Cape Bon is only about 80+ miles, and a larger total of 1,000
stadia from Lilybaeum to the city of Carthage further inside the gulf as antiquity

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records it (Polybius n.d. I.42.6). This distance is also recorded in Strabo (n.d.)
(XVII.3.16 and II.5.19), although Strabo (n.d.) exaggerated the actual total distance
from Lilybaeum to Carthage by at least 30% as Strabo (n.d.) names 1,500 stadia.
The distance from Carthage to Lilybaeum should be about 120 miles, from Cape
Bon to Lilybaeum about 80+ miles. From Sicily one usually sails with a strong head
wind if sailing southwestward as I experienced in summer 2008, and although Sicily
could not be seen from the tip of Cape Bon and vice versa, it is easily less than a day
by ship from Carthage to Sicily in propitious winds normally blowing from the west.
Conversely, Africa was just as easily accessible from Sicily according to Polybius
(n.d.) (I.26.12), presumably by a ship tacking diagonally into the wind.
Just west of Trapani (ancient Drapana) in Sicily, the Phoenician colony of
Motya on the small island of the same name was the debarkation point
eastward for the long northern coast of Sicily and eventual colonies like
Panormus (later Palermo) and other trading stations. Motya was also the
debarkation point northward for Sardinia, where Phoenician colonies such as
Tharros on Sardinia, and others on Corsica, would be the logical springboards
for trade with Etruria, using the Skerki Bank coastal shelf that extends
northwards underwater. Additionally, sailing eastward along the northern coast
of Sicily would eventually lead to mainland Italy across the Strait of Messina
and what would be the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in South Italy
including Rhegion and Neapolis. Like Carthage, each of these Phoenician
colonies mentioned had an advantageous, geographically savvy location as a
debarkation point for trade and a logical port for fresh water and safe
harboring.
Additionally, Carthage not only juts northward to almost touch Sicily along the
Skerki Bank, but this is also the ideal practical location from which to control trade
westward with the Balearic islands, Iberia, and access to the Pillars of Herakles
(western Gibraltar), and beyond. This is seen in the recorded voyage of Hanno the
Navigator, where African exploration was marked by daily reckoning of distance
and other phenomena by a habitually maritime culture, with all distances marked
relative to Carthage (Schoff 1912: 4). Note the Phoenician custom of founding
colonies on islands in protected bays, for example Cerne in the East Atlantic of West
Africa, as far from the Pillars of Herakles as Carthage was itself.
Thus the strategic location of Carthage was well thought out as a place safe from
eastern marauders as well as less contested by the newly expanding Greek colonies,
especially Phocaeans and Corinthians (Fantar 2007: 31) in South Italy and Sicily.
Part of Carthages advantage in being less contested must have been due to its
location in Africa to the south of most Greek and early Roman interests. But
Carthages location was also optimum because it was close to newer, western trade
markets and metal resources like Spanish tin, lead and especially silver (Diodorus
Siculus, n.d. V.38.2), and access to the Atlantic and Cornish tin (Casson 1991: 124
25). Carthage also had access to Italy and Etruscan bronze as well as the new centers
of the murex dye trade established in North Africa (Oren 1986; Master 2003;
Ruscillo 2007). Around 540 BCE, Phocaean Greeks tried to push westward beyond
Corsica with a fleet of sixty ships but met with a disastrous defeat at the hands of
Carthage and its allies, severely curbing Greek colonizing westward for awhile:

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Fig. 2 Gulf of Tunis. Note location of Jebel Boukornine (Djebel bou Kournine) at bottom of gulf.
(Credit: Al Duncan)

Greek knowledge of the coasts of Iberia seems to have gone into decline after this
event (Nesselrath 2005: 159; Krings 1998: 229 ff.). Diodorus Siculus (n.d.) and
Herodotus, a bit grudgingly, record how enterprising the Phoenicians were in both
discovery and optimizing trade by craftiness:
The Phoenicians from ancient times were unparalleled in their skill at making
discoveries motivated for their own profit. (Diodorus Siculus n.d. V.38.3)
Comparable commercial zeal could describe almost any trading society but the
Phoenicians may deserve the reputation of being the most accomplished traders of
antiquity, seemingly rarely losing a deal through negotiations at which they were
unmatched. The Carthaginian commercial monopoly and dominance over all other
western Phoenician colonies (Scullard 2005: 487) was a natural extension of
geographical advantages.
In all the Punic mercantile activities, the needed presence of Sicily close at hand
is hard to ignore. Losing Sicily to the Romans at the end of the first Punic War so
enraged Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, that he never forgave Rome, knowing
what a blow it would be to Carthage (Polybius n.d. III.10.4).

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Oceanography: Currents, Winds and Shoals

Third, the Phoenicians knew their oceans better than anyone in the ancient world due
to their essentially commercial explorations. Several accounts survive in various late
texts of the voyages of the Phoenicians Hanno and Himilco, among others. Himilcos
voyagesroughly contemporary with Hannosare mentioned in Plinys Historia
Naturalis II.169 and also preserved in anonymous accounts and those of Rufus
Avienus Ora Maritima, 4th. c. CE (Murphy 2003). Although Phoenician understanding of oceanography was nascent, their navigation experience was considerable,
more than the contemporary Greeks, some of whose descriptions of voyages in the
Mediterranean and elsewhere survived later in the voyage of Pytheas and also in the
works of Herodotus (III.91) (Rainey 2001; Cunliffe 2002). Cunliffe also discusses
the probable Massiliot Periplus, a Greek account of sea travel and Atlantic exploration, and the voyages of Himilco. The Phoenicians had centuries of navigation with
detailed maritime observation and had long recorded currents and winds (Fig. 3).
Thus, several oceanographic factors were also critical for locating Carthage. The Gulf
of Tunis lies just west of the Strait of Sicily between Ras el Tib of Africa and Sicily, an
important strategic location. At the southwest shore along the Gulf of Tunis, itself about
70 km wide at its northern mouth between the capes, Carthage lies, as mentioned, in a
broad double gulf protected from western Mediterranean storms by its extensive capes
like Cape Bon (Ras el-Tib) on the east and Cape Farina (Ras et-Tarf) on the west
(Shackleton et al. 1984). Wind and water action in the Mediterranean basin normally
has observable concurrent cycles, especially noted by mariners from antiquity but now
fairly quantifiable (Pinardi et al. 1997, 2005; Burlando 2008).
As an evaporitic basin for millions of years, the Mediterranean Sea annually loses
more water to evaporation than it gains from river outflow from Europe and Africa
(Couper 1983; Earle and Glover 2008: 133). A constant replenishing surface current
enters the Mediterranean from the Atlantic. This surface current is stronger in the
Western Mediterranean as it flows eastward, gradually weakening until it reaches the

Fig. 3 Mediterranean Currents and Winds in June. Current gyres noted by solid arrows. Wind direction
noted by dotted arrows. (Credit: Mike Williams)

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Levant. Accordingly, there are two major anticlockwise hydrologic gyres in the
Mediterranean, one in each major basin, west and east, but with many smaller gyres
or eddies. The main current channel connecting the two sub-basins flows between
North Africa and Sicily, specifically along Cape Bon (Ras el-Tib) in North Africa
and southwest Sicily, and therefore directly passing the Gulf of Tunis and Carthage.
Because the main eastward surface currentoriginally from the Atlanticbifurcates
along the western coast of Sicily, the now-divided northern anticlockwise surface
current also flows eastward along the northern coast of Sicily in the best sailing
months (Pinet 2006). Carthage is thus perfectly situated at the main funneling
division to take advantage of both these anticlockwise hydrologic gyres along North
Africa and along Sicily.
Although the prevailing wind direction is also generally from the west, the surface
westerly winds that sailing vessels would use also follow the same basic cyclonic
pattern, bifurcating at Sicily and creating three gyres or circulation patterns that
again touch at the Gulf of Tunis. These are: 1) the western Mediterranean gyre
between Gibraltar and Sicily, 2) the Libyan gyre between southern Sicily and North
Africans Gulf of Sidra in Libya, and 3) the Tyrrhenian basin above Sicily. The first
two gyres rotate roughly anticlockwise and meet along the North African continental
shelf just above the Bay of Tunis (Soloviev et al. 2000; Petit-Maire and Vrielinck
2005; Pirazzoli 2005). New Mediterranean wind velocity studies using the
HIPOCAS database show that the Strait of Sicily outside the Gulf of Tunis is also
situated in a predictable wind extreme event: high prevailing wind velocity region
from the Algerian coast to the west continuing along the coast of Sicily and into the
Gulf of Sidra to the east. The average HIPOCAS wind velocity in the Strait of Sicily
appears annually to be about 25 ms1 over an extrapolated 100-year period. The
Gulf of Tunis itself, however, is in a protected zone not subject to such extreme wind
events whereas the Gulf of Sidra is subject to them (Sotillo et al. 2006) and is a
known graveyard for ships since antiquity. These prevailing westerly wind patterns
are also consistent since antiquity (Haywood and Cook 2007). Phoenician trade
monopolies and mercantilist routes are well known, taking centuries to develop to
near perfection (Docter 2007), ultimately only ceasing with eventual Roman military
domination over competing interests about who would control the Mediterranean
(Wolff 1986). Polybius (n.d.) noted that Carthaginians commanded the sea (I.7.6;
also I.15.1) to the apprehension of the Romans before the First Punic War (264241
BCE).
Because as mentioned the Mediterranean surface winds here are predominantly
westerlies, depending on whether ships used sails for the wind, or shallow or deep
oars for the currents, the general eastward surface wind flow would be useful for
traveling east, southeast or northeast, bringing Western goods to the East and vice
versa. Moving westward would require tacking into these prevailing winds and
would take longer (Tilley 1994; Roberts 1995). This general eastward cyclonic
weather model prevails during summer, high season for maritime traffic in antiquity
as now, although warm scirocco windscalled ghibli in Libya and much of the
North African Maghrebin early spring and late fall bring Saharan dust and storms
into the Mediterranean from the southwest. Having sailed westward into this strong
westerly wind in summer 2008 circumnavigating Sicily, I can vouch for its force.
Tacking into it can also utilize this same factor to some advantage.

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Often at the mercy of winds and stormslike the disaster recorded in the literary
account of Pauls shipwreck in Acts of the Apostles 27:244 (Casson 1994: 15759;
Buhagiar 1997, 2007)certain areas along North Africa added dangers like the
infamous Gulf of Sidra. For safest shipping traffic, placement of Carthage also needed
to be west of the treacherous shoals of the Gulf of Sidra to the east. Tossed by winds,
fighting contrary currents, surprised by rocks and shoals and circumstances often
beyond control, sailing was not an easy venture in antiquity, especially in the open sea.
Cassons useful texts are still the best studies of maritime enterprise in the ancient
world, followed by Clines research (Casson 1991: 12ff; Cline 1994). Sailing, whether
along a coast or in open sea, was usually for the experienced or brave in the window
between April and September, yet never a guarantee of safety even for the veteran
merchant sailors. As Warmington said (Warmington 1960: 14):
Sailing in antiquity was a hazardous venture, and it was the rule whenever
possible to keep within sight of land and anchor or beach the ships at night.
On the other hand, as shown above, venturing into open-sea trade was also a practice
as early as the eighth century BCE, as mentioned off the Skerki Banks and also off the
Levant Coast (Ballard et al. 2000, 2002). As mentioned, the Libyan Gulf of Sidra as we
now name it was a ship graveyard from early antiquity onward because it had so many
unpredictably shifting sand bars. It was even known in mythology as the Syrtes, a
monster lying in wait under the suddenly shallow water, as in Virgil (n.d.) (Aeneid
VII.303) how have the Syrtes helped me, monster Charybdis? (Swain 2000: 155).
These dangers were true especially of the western Gulf of Sidra where the cross
currents piled up sand invisible to sailors just under the surface if one ventured too far
south or too close to land. Alluviationthe factor most responsible for the shoals,
along with seasonally changing currentshas diminished from now mostly dry rivers
flowing into the Mediterranean from the Atlas Mountains and its eastern subdivisions
like the Tunisian Chemtou range of North Africa. This is mostly due to desertification
from Saharan extension northward, but this phenomenon of unexpected shoals can still
be easily evidenced from bathymetric maps where the shallow African continental
shelf extends considerably outward, almost 300 km with an average depth of 70
150 m and often far less on the shallow submarine Tunis Plateau of the western gulf of
Sidra (Pinardi et al. 2005: 15). Because ancient shipping often hugged coasts, marine
traffic had to cross the open water of the gulf without landmarks along a fairly flat
coast, so it was best to stay in open water as far north of the Gulf as possible before
heading for land. In this case landfall would have been the capes on the east end of the
protected Gulf of Tunis, also where the Libyan Sea would meet Sicily and where its
currents then rotate east around the southern coast of Sicily.

Local Topography
Finally, not just the general location on the African coast but also the exact location
of Carthage was planned in many respects. Even local topography became integral to
the development of Carthage. The Gulf of Tunis is, as mentioned, a double gulf with
an inner and outer protected body of water (Figs. 3 and 4), fairly unusual in coastal
topography but not lost on the Phoenicians. As mentioned, the mouth of the larger,

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outer gulf is about 70 km wide from outer Cape Farina to Cape Bon, and the smaller,
inner gulf only about 30 km wide from Cape Carthago to Ras Dourdas. The
bathymetry of the entire gulf itself is shallow, with a depth never exceeding 200 m
(Pinardi et al. 2005: Fig. 1). The Byrsa hill where the original Tyrian colony that
became Carthage had its first settlement was the highest point of land. The Byrsa is
about 75 m high in the somewhat peninsular bayside promontory plain set apart and
protected on the north by another headland of Cape Carthago below Cape Farina
(Ras-et-Tarf). That Carthage was on the western side of the Gulf of Tunis is also
deliberate and logical, where it would not face the brunt of westerly winter winds
and was also protected by the headland of Cape Carthago from the northerly winds
off the Mediterranean.
This intentional protective aim at Carthage was something many Roman harbors
often lacked even centuries later: the early port on the coast where the Tiber River
flowed out at Ostia, before Claudius inaugurated an artificial harborPortus
beginning in 42 CE, had no protection against wind and waves (Casson 1965; Royal
2008). On the other hand, as a better parallel to Carthages shelter in the inner part of
the double Gulf of Tunis, the natural Campanian harbor of Puteoli (Pozzuoli) was
noted and chosen by Roman naval engineers for some of the same criteria as at
Carthage due to its fine deepwater natural harbor, where it was this shoreline and all
its facilities which made Puteoli the great port in the late Republic (Rickman 1988;
Oleson 1988; Hohlfelder 2008). Carthages excellent natural location, however, was
greatly enhanced by the Cothon manmade harbor whereas Roman Puteoli added

Fig. 4 Carthage from Byrsa Hill. Note visual prominence of Jebel Boukornine across gulf. (Credit: P. Hunt)

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moles similar to modern breakwaters. The Greeks at Piraeus had followed a similar
Phoenician pattern of an optimum, mostly natural location but increasingly
artificially modified harbors with the growth of the 5th century BCE Athenian
league and the need for a larger naval fleet (Hunt 1990).
Not only originally on an isthmus, Carthage was protected on several sides by
different bodies of water (Fantar 2007: 34). Again, this can be no accident. Just on
the south of Carthage, a narrow isthmus of land separated the gulf from an ancient
lagoon called Taenia and terminating in Lake Tunis (El Bahira) today, so Carthage
was the optimum spot of protected land where a city could rise around a fortress and
still be close to arable farmland (Soren et al. 1990: 18), especially the nearby fertile
and then fairly well-watered Megara plain in antiquity (Ennabli 2008: 32).
Even though the immediate coastal area was protected by its position in the inner
dual gulf and the higher headland of Cape Carthago to the north, the Carthaginians
ultimately created an added artificial double harbor just inland by digging out below
the Byrsa the cothon or later manmade port. This was so-called Secret Harbor
because it was invisible from the gulf with its interior circular military harbor and its
exterior rectilinear commercial harbor (Yorke 1976; Hurst and Stager 1978; Garcia
1998). The Punic word cothon probably derived from qt, the Semitic verb root to
cut out (Fantar 2007: 4041). Early Phoenician harbor studies (Poidebard 1939) are
now superseded by Marriner and Morhange, whose research on ports, especially
Phoenician, is both seminal and the most comprehensive to date (Marriner and
Morhange 2006, 2007; Marriner et al. 2006a). The most recent study of 2007 just
noted shows Mediterranean harbors including Phoenician ports at Byblos, Tyre,
Sidon, Carthage and Cartagena, all of which excepting Carthage were essentially
buried in different stages whereas the cothon of Carthage is eroded, for possible
reasons explained below.
An added advantage that may have been known to Carthaginian nautical engineers of
harbors from centuries of experience, the artificial cothon port of Carthage with its dual
berthing options has not silted up over the millennia like so many other ancient
Mediterranean ports, but has merely eroded instead. This is in contrast to Utica, which
is now 12 km inland due to silting of the Medjerda River, as Wilson reviews from a
recent study of Tunisias mostly eroded coastline (Wilson 2006). Carthages difference
might be explained by several possible factors, some of which were presumably
known since antiquity. Its location on the western inner double gulf means that it was
protected from powerful Mediterranean currents moving eastward even more than
Utica would have been. Also, a smaller eddying gyre would flow from the
Mediterranean into the Gulf of Tunis in a clockwise direction. After being diverted
into the outer gulf by the Zembra island group, any eddying current would flow first
along the eastern side of the gulf, which is thus less protected than the western side
that received diminished current force. If this weakened gyre then flowed
anticlockwise west to Cape Carthago at the base of the outer gulf, it would have
been even more reduced by the fact of the duality of gulfs, thus very little current
would move into the even shallower inner gulf where Carthage lies.
Although some silting in the inner gulf could have been inescapable from several
rivers flowing into it, like the Meliane River (now mostly a wadi) (Margat 2004), the
cothon may have had the added advantage of a probable breakwater on the
projecting eastern point of the entrance according to most reconstructions. While

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current surface discharge from the region of Carthage is 0.85 km3/year, past or
ancient flows as former natural surface discharge (before montane deforestation
circa 8th century CE ?) are estimated at 3 km3/year and possibly greater.
Furthermore, wind patterns are mostly from the west so that any wind-aided silting
would go away from the harbor rather than toward it. In some sense, these
observable phenomena must have aided a deliberated choice by the water- and windobservant Phoenicians who had already long established Utica and thus predicted the
potential advantages of Carthage over the earlier landfall, not the least of which was
its inner gulf position.
It was not merely commercial pragmatism, maritime logic and access to natural
resources, however, as the sole geographical factors in Carthages founding. The
Phoenicians and their antecedents in Canaan also had a long history of identifying
advantages of local topography and correlating immediate landmarks with religious
significance.
One of the first things modern visitors to Carthage still notice looking south from the
Byrsa toward the double harbor is the striking landscape (Fig. 4). The broad Gulf of
Tunis stretches away to a line of southern and eastern mountains. One peak in
particular rises from the water, the southern mountain of Baal, known as Jebel
Boukornine, or Bulls Head Mountain dominating the gulf with a steep rise and
prominent double horns at over 495 m elevation. This would have almost certainly
been a landmark reminder of either of the dynamic bull images of the Phoenician
gods El and Baal. This is corroborated by a known temple to the gods on the
mountain Jebel Boukornine (Ennabli 2008: 10). Although the name may be an ancient
toponym, it is difficult to establish how old. On the other hand, the original word
boukarnine has clear Greek and Semitic antecedents earlier than Arabic that may
reflect or retain elements of its Punic toponym (Lipinski 1982). The earlier colony of
Utica had no such distinctive montane landmark hypothetically feasible as a dramatic
element of sacred topography.
Somewhat subordinating weather to religious beliefs, the ancestors of the
Phoenicians were very cognizant of Mediterranean winds as factored weather
elements, although for them this was indicative of Baals power in the Baal cycle,
seen especially in the Tales of Yamm from the KTU texts, where Baal, the storm
god is partly responsible for weather patterns that condition maritime traffic in the
westerly winds (Smith 1994: 98). Additionally, Baal was an atmospheric rather than
an earth god whose participation in seasonal change was vital for travel across water
and replenishing of water from sea to sky to earth (Green 2003).
For several reasons, Bulls Head Mountain is likely reminiscent of a distant,
much earlier topographic landmark above ancient Ugarit and now northern coastal
Syria. Even though it is south of the city rather than north, Jebel Boukornine was
probably celebrated as an extension of the old cult of Baal-Saphon (Eissfeldt 1932;
Lambdin 1962; Green 2003: 19093). This earlier toponym was well known to
Phoenicians as Mt. Saphon, also the word for north in Phoenician and other
Semitic languages like Hebrew. It is well-known that Phoenician sailors were
beholden to such deities as Ba[a]l Saphon for safe passage over the waters,
(Ballard et al. 2002: 163; Pope 1955) since Mt. Saphon was Baals hill of victory
and visible locus of this gods victory over Yam the sea (Gibson 1977). This original
Syrian coastal mountain is today known as Jebel Akra, combining the words for high

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place in two languages, Arabic and Greek. It rose immediately from the Levant coast
up to almost 1,700 m elevation or around a mile high. Because of this physical
prominence, it caught the moisture-laden winds coming from the Mediterranean as
an evaporitic basin, and as the moist air ascended it reached dew point and
condensed in what climatologists call orographic precipitation, caused by mountains.
Naturally, the prototype landmark of Mt. Saphon in the Levant was often covered in
clouds and was the logical mountain of Baal because it had the highest rainfall of
the region (Hunt 1991) to signify Baals blessed presence.
Jebel Boukornine, sacred mountain for the Punic city, exhibits the same
topographic and climatic phenomena as Mt. Saphon in Syria, including enhanced
orographic precipitation; it would have been the local home of Baal, one the most
important gods in the Punic pantheon in a long tradition of associations of this old
Semitic storm god with high places and sacred mountains (Fleming 1992: 21417).
Plus, as the most prominent local mountain rising from the gulf, it will be cloudy
first of anywhere in the region and even functioning as a prognosticator of weather
change with sudden cumulus clouds gathering. So it should not be surprising it has
the highest local rainfall to garner it the epithet of Baals Mountain for Carthage.
Its dramatic crest of double peaks lies directly across the bay from Carthage in a line
of sight that reflects the double harbor, pride of Carthage, with the sacred precincts
of Baal and Tanit to the immediate south. This seems hardly a coincidence in a
culture where religious topography and the civic sense of Punic urban planning were
intertwined. Furthermore, just as Mt. Saphon to the east was a mariners landmark
on the Mediterranean horizon when sailing from Cyprus, so was Jebel Boukornine,
Baals new Punic mountain. It was likely to be a mariners landmark to the south
when rounding Cape Bon or Cape Farina into the Gulf of Tunis, as well as symbolic
of Baals victory over Yam the sea, as it rises directly over the water when seen both
from the gulf and the city of Carthage itself.
Thus, local topography is an important consideration for locating Carthage. It
illustrates the best possible use of the landscape in both a physical and spiritual
sense, echoing prior Phoenician cultural landmarks that had both geographical and
religious significance to this wealthy, pragmatic city that exploited its urban planning
to new levels of interpreting its relationship with its gods. Local topography was
certainly influential in further defining the exact location of Carthage within the
double Gulf of Tunis. In contrast, locations of earlier trading emporia like Utica
might also derive from the other factors like Mediterranean centrality and proximity
to Sicily, but lack the local topographic factor (including sacred topography) which
helps explain the ultimate rise of Carthage over Utica.

Conclusion
All these physical, geographic and topographic factors appear to have been
empirically observed and deliberated upon by the nautically savvy Phoenicians over
centuries as they explored and traversed the Western Mediterranean from the tenth
century BCE onward. Other ancient cultures have also exercised topographical
canniness in choices of locating settlements for maritime colonies, and Carthage may
not be unique in this aspect. It is feasible, however, to attempt a reconstruction of

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151

how the Phoenicians regarded geography and topography of land and sea in this
instance. Although other early locations might or might not have flourished equally
at times, when the Phoenicians chose Carthage in North Africa as their new base of
operations, they had very good rationales from their extensive knowledge of the
Mediterranean. This knowledge was based on centuries of maritime exploration and
geographical observation of everything from accessibility to potential defensive
shelter, and even local and regional wind and water currents as well as desired sacred
topography. Carthages location in North Africa was thus the result of compounding
geographical logic.

Acknowledgements Acknowledgements are made to the National Geographic Society Expeditions

Council for supporting my Tunisian fieldwork in 20072008, especially to Rebecca Martin, Director, also
to Adria LaViolette and to the careful readers of drafts of this article as well as to Al Duncan at Stanford
for images.

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