This grant will be used to publish the final reports from rescue excavations at the Phoenician-Punic site of Carthage that took place between 2000 and 2005 under the direction of the grant recipient, first with the University of Amsterdam, then Ghent University in collaboration with the Tunisian Institut National du Patrimoine (co-directors Fethi Chelbi and Boutheina Maraoui Telmini). The Bir Massouda site (or Bir Messaouda, “propriété Abdel Khader") lies in the Dermech quarter of Carthage, bounded by the TGM light-rail (Tunis-La Goulette-La Marsa) to the west and the Route de La Goulette (formerly Avenue Habib Bourgiba) to the east, by residential building to the north and by commercial buildings to the south, an area of roughly 100m x 170m (1.7ha). Here, archaeological teams from the University of Hamburg (Niemeyer, 1986-1995) and from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Rome / University of Munich (Rakob, Dolenz, Flügel, 1995-1996) previously excavated residential quarters, and a team from the University of Cambridge was excavating an early Christian basilica (Miles, 2000-2004). Together these excavations provide evidence of some 1500 years of continuous occupation, from the Phoenician through Byzantine phases (c. 800 BCE to 700 CE). The main focus of the excavations and, hence, the publications lies in the Phoenician-Punic period.
The publication project is directed by Roald Docter
