Byrsa
Byrsa was a walled fortress over the port of the ancient city of Carthage in what is now Tunisia . The hill on which this citadel stood was also called Byrsa. Derived from Phoenician , the name Byrsa means 'citadel'.
When Dido , the mythical founder of Carthage, ended up looking for a home for herself and her followers near what is now Tunis under the rule of the Hierbas (Iarbas), she met with great rejection from the Berber population. So she came up with a ruse and asked the Numid prince for only as much land as an ox skin could contain. She cut the ox skin into fine strips, surrounding the Byrsa Hill, on which Saint-Louis Cathedral is now enthroned, and founded Quart Hadasht , the 'new city'. The legend seems doubtful and invented to fit the Ionic- Greek word ἡ βύρσα, he býrsa , which means 'ox skin '.
Archaeologically proven is Carthage's foundation as a colony of the Phoenicians from approx. 750 BC.
The walled castle on Byrsa Hill influenced the city under itself and became the military center of Carthage, which developed into the most powerful trading city in the western world.
The statements of ancient authors about the location and shape of the city are not always clear. The city is said to have consisted of a suburb, the lower town and the district of Byrsa (old town?). Archaeological finds are rare because the Romans destroyed the city after the Punic Wars. The two ports for the merchant fleet and the navy ( Kothon ) were in the lower town. The agora is believed to be north of the naval port. A city wall secured the city, which, according to ancient literature, had around 700,000 inhabitants at the end of the Punic Wars , and according to archaeologists up to 400,000 inhabitants. This made it one of the metropolises of the Mediterranean. The necropolises of Carthage were to the north of Byrsa.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Huss, The name of the Byrsa of Carthage . In: Klio LXIV, 1982, pp. 403-406.
Web links
Coordinates: 36 ° 51 ′ 8 ″ N , 10 ° 19 ′ 26 ″ E