From the 12th century BC until the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, the Western Phoenician / Punic civilisation was a major force in the Mediterranean. Yet its study, so fundamental to understanding the complexity of human interaction in the central and Western Mediterranean for almost a millennium, remains marginalised. Rome’s destruction of Carthaginian culture was all too effective and finds its echo in modern scholarship: many classical historians and archaeologists regard the Punic world as ‘other’, whose study belongs in some version of Oriental Studies. Punic commercial and trading activities were legendary, and led to the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome; yet even this clear example of trading concerns leading to war fails to make it into the economic histories of antiquity. A welcome trend is beginning to break down these parochial barriers, and this session aims to further it by exploring the contacts between the Punic world and its neighbours. Papers will examine Phoenician influence on early Punic culture; monetary interactions in Punic Sicily; the evidence of imported Greek culture in Carthage; Punic technological influence on building techniques outside Africa; Punic-Berber interactions; and Punic imitations of Greek pottery forms and their export to Greek Cyrenaica.

1. Carmen Aranegui (University of Valencia) and Ricardo Mar (University of Tarragona)

Juba II and Lixus (Morocco)

2. Jonathan Prag (Merton College,Oxford University)

Siculo-Punic Coinage and Siculo-Punic Interactions

3. Nacéra Benseddik (CRASC, Oran)

Asklépios, Eshmun mais encore…

4. Roald Docter (University of Gent), Fethi Chelbi (UniverTunis of I), Boutheina Maraoui Telmini (University of Tunis I), Babette Bechtold (Independent Researcher) & Winfred van de Put (University of Amsterdam)

The Greek facies of Punic Carthage

5. Nicholas Vella (University of Malta)

“Phoenician” metal bowls: Boundary Objects in the Archaic Period