Elizabeth Fentress

The Jerba Survey: Settlement in the Punicand Roman Periods

Elizabeth Fentress��� ����� ����

Methodology�

Our evidence for the island’s history derives from three principal techni-ques: field walking, excavation and the study of the archives. As the ma-jority of our time in the field is spent on the former our approach will bediscussed in some detail. The methodology of field survey is still thesubject of much debate�, and there is as yet little consensus on what couldbe called best practice. Views are strongly held as to the advisability ofsampling, or the nature of the collection and documentation of artefacts.The approach followed on Jerba grows out of the experience of the Albe-gna Valley Survey, as well as two minor projects undertaken in Marsala(Sicily) and Zana (Algeria)�.

�. The project is jointly sponsored by the Institut National du Patrimoine, the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania and the American Academy in Rome, under the direction in thefield of Ali Drine, Elizabeth Fentress and Renata Holod. We are extremely grateful to M.Hedi Slim for his constant support, as well as to M. Boubakr Ben Fredj for his interestand encouragement. Besides the sponsoring institutions the project has been generouslysupported by the ���� Foundation, the Van Berchem Foundation, the Packard Founda-tion for the Humanities, and the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania.

�. Most recently in the context of a conference on survey technique at the Universityof Siena: R. F�������� and H. P������ (eds.), Extracting Meaning from PloughsoilAssemblages, Oxford ����. See also C. L. R� ���, Surface Collection, Sampling and Re-search Design: a Retrospective, «American Antiquity», ��, ����, pp. ���-��; A. M.S�� �����, Survey Archaeology and the Rural Landscape of the Greek City, in O. M�����,S. P���� (eds.), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander, Oxford, ���, pp. ��-�; G.B�����, Approaches to Archaeological Survey, in G. B�����, J. L��� (eds.), RomanLandscapes: Archaeological Survey in the Mediterranean Region, London ����, pp. �-�; A.J. S������ (ed.), Interpreting Artefact Scatters, Contribution to Ploughzone Archaeology,Oxford ����, pp. �-��.

. I. A����� et al., Political Geography and Productive Geography between the Val-leys of the Albegna and the Fiora in Northern Etruria, in G. B�����, J. L��� (eds.), Ro-man Landscapes, cit., ����, pp. ���-�. E. F������ et al., A Sicilian Villa and its Landscape.Contrada Mirabile (Mazara), «Opus», �, ����, pp. ��-��. E. F������, A. A� K���, N.

�������� ���� � � � ���� ����� ���� ����� ��� ������

The island of Jerba covers 568 square kilometres. Its size is thus suchas to rule out a total survey, which would take an unreasonable amount oftime if carried out at an acceptable level of intensity. We have thus adop-ted a systematic sampling strategy in which survey is carried out in step-ped north-south transects one kilometre wide spaced at four kilometerintervals. This gives an apparent 20% coverage of the island. However,line-walking at 20 meter intervals gives a visibility of only 50% within tho-se transects, so the real coverage is a more realistic 10%. Additional areashave been added along the densely-settled southeast coast of the island,so as to create a wider block in which to study the progressive displace-ment of settlement in that area. Other such purposive additions to thebackground sample will probably be made in the future, as more infor-mation about the nature of settlement on the island is gathered.

Variation within the boundaries of the island is slight. Of environ-mental factors the most important is the availability of sweet water at anacceptable depth. There are no springs, so all water for agricultural use isderived from wells, while rain-water for drinking is stored in cisterns. Hy-drology charts show that the best water is found in the northeastern quar-ter of the island, and this is today the area with the highest settlementdensity. Otherwise, variation in altitude is minimal, while the very uni-form ploughed olive and palm groves give an extraordinarily high visibil-ity to pottery and other artefacts. However, agricultural practice, al-though largely free of the deep-ploughing which characterizes that of Ita-ly, has caused considerable damage to the legibility of the archaeologicalrecord. The creation of an olive grove may involve wholescale bulldozingin order to create high earthen walls around the fields. It is not uncom-mon to find the material from an entire Punic farm packed into one ofthese walls, while widespread background scatters testify to the destruc-tion of sites in the area. Our collection strategy has been designed to takethese factors into account, while striving to maintain an acceptable rate ofsite-retrieval. A second consideration in our methodology was the neces-sity to design the survey from the beginning to take into account the tech-nical advances in Geographic Information Systems. Recently, a numberof older surveys have been “retrofitted” to the new analytic tools. AtJerba we had the opportunity to design a system which could be recordedimmediately onto a ��� database. It was clear that an efficient use of sucha system would require a modular approach to the archaeological and en-vironmental data, as well as an acceptable coverage of settlement

B��������, Prospections dans le Belezma: Rapport Préliminaire, in Actes du Colloque inter-nationale sur l’histoire de Sétif, «BAA», Supplemento �, ����, pp. ���-��.

74 ������� �����

throughout the island. The recording of background pottery scatterswould have to be included in this program.

In seeking to resolve the apparent contrast between efficient recov-ery of our major source of data, the evidence for settlements, and the neces-sity to record as carefully as possible the pottery distribution on the land-scape as a whole, we have adopted an approach which is qualitativerather than quantitative in nature. In other words, we are attempting toidentify the nature of the sporadic pottery observed in the field ratherthan to achieve a spurious exactitude about its quantity, whose highlystochastic nature precludes any confidence in its statistical analysis�.

The recording system is based on blocks of 100 square meters, each ofwhich occupies a single cell in the ��� map of the island. Each kilometrewalked is recorded on graph paper prepared with two 1:10.000 sketchesof the principal landscape features: roads, ridges and minarets which canserve as useful position checks. The five-person team then walks a blockin lines 20 meters apart, collecting any feature sherds present along theline. At the end of the block the team leader identifies the pottery pre-sent, and if no evidence for in situ settlement debris has been found,colors the relevant block on the first map according to a key which indicatesthe presence of protohistoric, Punic, early imperial, late imperial, medie-val and/or early-modern debris. Any problematic or particularly interest-ing material is saved.

On the second map the nature of the vegetation is indicated, alongwith water features such as wells. This information is also recorded in ajournal entry, with any other observations about the block walked. A ���

reading is taken every five blocks, as a necessary position check in therather featureless landscape of the island.

The identification of sites is again based on qualitative rather thanquantitative information. Our experience has shown that concentrationsof pottery from the historic periods are regularly associated with buildingmaterials - tiles, stone, traces of plaster flooring or wall plaster. These areoften accompanied by perceptible changes in soil color. Rather than relyon pottery density alone we have chosen to use the presence of some or allof these criteria in the identification of individual habitation sites. The ex-ceptions to this policy are periods in which the pottery itself is so rare asto constitute a significant indicator on its own. This is particularly true for

�. On the qualitative approach to field survey information see E. F�������, What arewe Counting For?, in F�������, P�������� (eds.), Extracting Meaning from PloughsoilAssemblages, cit.

��� ����� ���� 75

the early medieval and protohistoric periods, whose pottery has provedparticularly elusive�.

When a site is identified it is thoroughly examined by close line-wal-king, in which all pottery is collected. Feature sherds, and any fabrics notrepresented among the feature sherds are then saved. A context-sheet isfilled in with the appropriate detail, including a ��� reading with the esti-mated position error. A sketch map is drawn on the back of the sheet, andthe site is located on the kilometer map, with a rough sketch of its formand size. In cases where in situ structures are present the site is revisitedfor planning and, in some cases, for future low-level aerial photography.

In the case of the two known towns on the island these extensive sur-vey techniques were modified to give us more precise coverage of the va-riation within the towns themselves. At the Punic and early Roman townof Bourgou a 50 meter grid was laid over the 15 hectares covered by thetown. An abrupt scarp clearly indicated the limits of the town, so it waspossible to make a good estimate of the amount of time which would berequired to cover it. Within each 50 meter square a team collected featuresherds over a period of twenty minutes, while a total collection was carri-ed out on a 5 x 5 meter sample at the northwest corner of the square. Fromthis total collection a count was made of the number of amphorae, wheeland handmade coarsewares, and fineware sherds, as well as of any buil-ding material recovered. This has allowed us to study the variation in pot-tery density across the site, as well as the occurrence of pottery of diffe-rent periods. A sketch was also made of the 50 meter sample, from whicha sketch plan of the site was constructed.

In the case of the town of Meninx, surveyed in 1997, the huge size ofthe site (42 ha.) and the bulldozing of much of its area seemed to precludea quantitative approach to the pottery. However, numerous traces ofwalls suggested that the site as a whole should be mapped with a total sta-tion. A 50 meter grid was again laid out, and feature sherds collected wi-thin it. Again, the teams made sketch-maps of visible walls, and flaggedthese on the ground to aid the survey team to recover their positions. In-tensive survey of the murex-shell heaps inland from the town allowed usto recover large quantities of almost intact amphorae.

The extensive coverage of the transects, based on units of 100 meters,and the more intensive coverage within the cities, based on units of 50

meters, allow us two separate levels of ��� mapping. On the first, vegeta-tion, hydrology and datable pottery scatters are recorded over the island

�. M. M�����, Pottery Population or Supply Patterns? The Ager Tarraconensis Ap-proach, in G. B�����, J. L�� (eds.), Roman Landscapes, Archaeological Survey in theMediterranean Region (��� Archaeological Monographs �), ����, pp. ��-��.

76 ������ ��������

as a whole, allowing us to analyse the interaction of environmental andpositional factors with settlement density and historical demography.The intensive coverage of the towns allows ��� maps of the distribu-tion of pottery by type and period, significance tests of that distribu-tion, as well as more traditional Auto��� plans of the structures visi-ble in the town.

Settlement in the Punic Period

The lack of prehistoric finds from the island is striking, especially whencompared to the abundant material from the area of Gafsa. We must con-clude that the total absence of surface water made the island an inhospi-table site before well-digging became common. The earliest material re-covered consists of Attic pottery of the early fifth century, found on foursites: the port at Ghizen to the north of the island�, the town site at Bour-gou, and, on the southern side of the island, the port at Hares (Guellala)and the town of Meninx. Here excavations have revealed occupation le-vels under the forum, with evidence for murex production which con-firms Pliny’s comment that Meninx was an important centre for this com-modity, a «second Tyre» (nat. ��, 60).

Inland from this site, along a ridge running parallel to the coast, wasfound a large scatter of black glaze running in a band between two andthree hundred meters in width. At the extreme eastern end of the site wasfound a rectangular structure that might possibly be interpreted as asanctuary on the western periphery of the site. Next to the structure werefound three neo-punic stele. It seems possible to interpret this scatter asthe agricoltural support for the settlement on the coast at Meninx, and itseems to show a precocious development of the agricoltural hinterland ofthat settlement.

However, the central town of Bourgou was clearly the most impor-tant site on the island in the Punic period. On the periphery of the site isfound the tomb excavated by Mme Wereimmi Akkari, which yielded amonumental statue�. Although typologically the tomb fits easily into theseries of Numidian royal tombs, we are a long way from being sure ex-actly who founded the city, who ruled it at any given period, or who livedin it. However, the fact that this area of Tripolitania was effectively in-cluded in Massinissa’s kingdom from the end of the third century makes

�. J. A�����-W�������, La nécropole libyco-punique de Ghizène (Djerba, Tunisie),«Africa», ��, ����, pp. ��-��.

�. J. W�������-A�����, Un témoignage spectaculaire sur la présence libyco-puniquedans l’île de Jerba. Le mausolée de Henchir Bourgou, «REPPAL», �, ����, pp. ���-��.

��� ����� ���� 77

it plausible that it became the local administrative town for that kingdom,perhaps ruled by one of his relatives�. For the population, we are left withDiodorus Siculus’ vague designation, «Libyphoenicians». The remains ofthe town suggest that it was irregular in plan, with a large amount of do-mestic structures. These were decorated with some luxury, with signi-num floors, white and black mosaics, and painted wall plaster. Fragmentsof stucco capitals are found, although there is little trace of architecture instone. There was equally little trace of industrial activity on the site:slag was very rare, as was kiln debris. The clear scarp around the townsuggests the possibility that it was surrounded by a rampart, but exca-vation of a trench at one edge of the site proved inconclusive. On thenorth coast, the site of Ghizen, covering over four hectares stretchinginland from the shore. It seems plausible to suggest that Ghizen repre-sents the port for Bourgou in the Punic period. Another early portprobably existed on the east cost, near Sidi Garouss, but here the ar-chaeological evidence has been completely eradicated by hotel devel-opment.

By the late third century B.C. the hinterlands of Bourgou and Me-ninx � were occupied by large villas (���. 1). These are found as largemounds of material, rising at least a meter above the surrounding coun-tryside, and covered by a rich assortment of pottery, wall plaster andsmall architectural fragments. The mounds occupy around a hectare, andare sometimes associated with mausolea. At some distance from the villasare found amphora kilns, which produced neo-Punic amphorae of theforms van der Werff 2 a, b and c, dated to the second and first centuriesB.C. These have been identified from a number of sites in Tripolitania,and although there is not yet proof what they contained, the inland loca-tions of the kilns seem to rule out garum, and leave us with the choice ofwine or olive oil. In the first century A.D. the same kilns began to produ-ce amphorae of the type Mau ����. The shape of these, which derivesfrom that of the Dressel 2-4 type, suggest that they were wine amphorae,which may suggest that their predecessors were as well.

Around the villas, and throughout much of the area surveyed, arefound small farms. These are difficult to date with precision, but al-most all of them have yielded black-glazed sherds. The settlement hie-rarchy at the beginning of the Roman period was thus highly articula-ted, comprising at least two major towns (settlements at Ajim and Guel-lala have yet to be investigated, and we have not found a convincing iden-

�. Masinissa’s control of the region of the Emporia was not officially recognized un-til ���-��� B.C.: A��., Lib. ��; D. J. M��������, Tripolitania, London ����, pp. ��f.

78 ����� � ��� ����

tification for the towns known in our sources as Girba and Hares�), portsat Ghizen and, probably, on the east coast at Sidi Garouss, villas, kilnsand farms.

Agricultural production was clearly an important component of theeconomy of the island, although trade must have played a part, and weknow from Pliny’s comparison of Meninx with Tyre that murex musthave been produced by the first century A.D. Indeed, the find of signifi-cant deposits of murex waste mixed with amphorae of type Mau ����

and some black glazed pottery under the forum�� suggest that this wasalready a production site.

�. Sites on Jerba known from the Peutinger Table include Girba, Meninx, Tipasa,Hares (����, �).

��. See the contribution by A. D����, in this volume.

Fig. 1: Settlement in the third and second centuries B.C. (Michael Frachetti).

��� ����� ���� 79

The pattern this seems to indicate is one which is reminiscent of otherareas of the Western Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period. I think par-ticularly of the settlement pattern of the hinterland of Marsala, Punic Li-lybaeum, where large villas occupied the countryside from the end of thethird century B.C.��. On the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, numerous surveyshave shown similarly articulate patterns, associated with the first majorboom in Italian wine production��. What the pattern does not resemble isany of the results of the growing number of surveys on the mainland, withthe possible exception of the as-yet unpublished material from aroundCarthage. In none of these areas is black-glazed pottery present on ruralsites: indeed, only 18 sherds were found in the whole of the Segermes Sur-vey��: sherds from the Jerba survey already number well over 100. Weseem to be looking at a relatively precocious agricultural production, clo-sely linked with other Mediterranean sites such as Sicily. Trade may haveincluded other “invisible” items, such as the slaves traded from south ofthe Sahara by the Garamantes of Fezzan, or cloth dyed with the murexproduced at Meninx. What is evident, however, is the great prosperity ofthe island in this period, particularly when compared to the rest of ruralNorth Africa.

There is no evidence for any significant change in the settlementpatterns of the island after it was included in the Roman Province ofAfrica Proconsularis. Occupation continued at all sites, as can be demon-strated by the fact that the “Punic” cemetery on the coast at Souk elGhibli was replaced by an inhumation cemetery just below the sameridge: both were probably related to a major villa nearby (���. 2). It is notuntil the beginning of the second century A.D. that we begin to see majorchanges taking place in the settlement patterns of the island. The mostsignificant of these was the expansion and reconstruction of Meninx.This important Roman site has received very little previous attention, andthe only buildings known from it are two churches recorded by Gauck-ler��. The urban survey, which took the best part of three weeks, revealedan orthogonally-planned central nucleus, with, to the north, a few build-ings on a slightly different orientation. A large number of public build-

��. F������� et al., A Sicilian Villa and its Landscape, cit.��. A. C��������, Il vigneto e la villa del fondo di Settefinestre nel cosano. Un caso di

produzione agricola per il mercato trasmarino, «MAAR» ��, ����, �-��. I�. ����, La villa ro-mana e la piantagione schiavistica in Italia (�� secolo a.C.-�� d.C.), Storia di Roma, �, ����.

��. S. D���, L. S����, H. B�� H����� (eds.), Africa Proconsularis, ��, Copenhagen����, p. �. They note that no black glaze was not recorded on the Kasserine survey, whi-le � sherds were found at Leptiminus (ibid., p. ��.).

�. P. G� �����, Les Basiliques de la Tunisie, Paris ���, pl. ����, �����.

80 ������� � ����

ings were identified. Besides the forum, whose position has been knownsince the 1930’s, there were at least two bath complexes, one of which ap-pears to have a circular palestra, a circus, an amphitheatre, a theater, andone substantial church. Gaukler’s second church was found to the out-skirts of town, 300 m southwest of the amphitheatre. Perhaps more im-portantly, the survey has revealed that the town could accurately be de-scribed as an industrial city, for most of the standing structures are re-lated to the fish and shellfish industries – fish-salting tanks, garum tanksand murex-extraction tanks. Detailed survey of the distribution of frag-ments of opus sectile suggests that the residential quarters lay to thenortheast of the forum, and the “industrial quarter” to the southwest(���. 3). Huge mounds of murex shells flank the city to the west andsouth, while traces of amphora kilns are found in the northwest corner ofthe site, with other kilns to the northeast.

The chronology of the settlement is as yet imperfectly understood. Itmay that a Hadrianic or Antonine refoundation led to the construction ofa new town over the murex dumps to the south of the earlier site. Finds ofmurex dumps, whose latest sherd dates to the first century under the ex-cavated vats, seem to support this suggestion, as do the architectural re-

Fig. 2: A Punic villa and its necropolis at Souk el Ghibli (Michael Frachetti).

��� ����� ���� 81

mains of the forum itself. Conversely, the rarity of the earliest forms ofAfrican Red Slip (���) ware suggests that occupation was limited in theyears between 60 and 100 A.D. We know that neighboring Gigthis waselevated to the rank of municipium under Antoninus Pius, who is refer-red on to an inscription as «conditor municipium»��. It may well be thatimperial investment in Meninx occurred at about the same time, or sli-ghtly earlier. This might have been associated with the building of thecauseway linking Meninx to the mainland, a construction which may wellhave cut Gigthis off from its links to the Syrtis trade, redirecting it to-wards Meninx.

At the same time the town of Bourgou was, if not abandoned, at leastsubstantially depopulated. Finds of late-second century ��� are rare, andthere are few of any contemporary amphorae. The small farms seem to

Fig. 3: Meninx ��: the dark grey squares are those on which over 30 fragments ofopus sectile were found. These correspond well with finds of painted plaster(Shawna Leigh).

��. CIL ����, �����.

82 ������� �����

disappear, although substantial scatters of Roman pottery in the interiorsuggest that they may have been replaced by new ones. The villas, too,seem to have suffered a major set-back during the second century A.D.None of the kilns continued in production after the disappearance of theamphora type Mau ���� around the end of the first century A.D.: hence-forward all pottery production seems to have been concentrated on theperiphery of Meninx. Of the early sites only the port at Ghizen seems tohave retained some importance. It may have been occupied by a largevilla during this period. Other villae maritimae were built along the coast,although in general their remains are badly preserved, given the intensityof tourist development in the northeast side of the island. Thus on thebeach of the Club Méditerranée, at Sidi Garouss, is found a mosaic whichslowly crumbles into the sea, while a statue was found at Aghir and an-other near Mezraya. Figure 4 shows the settlement pattern of the secondcentury A.D.

In general, we seem to see a shift from the intensive agricultural pro-duction in the interior of the island which was a major feature of the eco-nomy of the Punic period to a greater concentration on the wealth produ-ced by Jerba’s shallow seas: salted fish, garum and, above all, murex dye.The interior remained occupied, but investment in villas had shifted tothe coast. By the fourth and early fifth centuries most of the settlementwas concentrated in Meninx, with only a few maritime villas occupied.However, there is every likelihood that Meninx was no longer the mostimportant site on the island. As Azedine Beschaouch has shown, the cityof Girba seems to have supplanted Meninx by the third century, givingits name to the island as a whole��. However, we still do not know wherethis city was located. The only trace of this settlement is the inscriptionpublished by Beschaouch which refers to the Respublica Girbitana, andwas found built into the fort at Houmt Souk. Now, we know how easilyinscriptions travel, especially in an island where good building stone israre. The account of the early 14 century traveller El Tijani, in which hereports his walk from Ajim to Girba, and from Girba to the Andalusianfort at Houmt Souk, would suggest that Girba and Houmt Souk are sepa-rated by some distance. Thus our view of the settlement of the island re-mains to be confirmed by the evidence from its western half.

At Meninx, settlement continued until the beginning of the seventhcentury, although excavation may suggest some large-scale destructionduring the late fifth century��. Some, at least, of the murex tanks were

��. A. B���������, «CRAI», ����, pp. ���-�. AE, ����, nr. ��.��. See the contributions of A. Drine and S. Fontana in this volume.

��� ����� ���� 83

built in the early sixth century, and the Greek ostraka from the excava-tion suggest that they were still in use during the fifth century. However,only two sherds of Hayes form 91D were recovered from the whole city,which seems to suggest either a lack of occupation on the site or a lack ofcontact with the outside world. It is at this point that we lose evidence foroccupation at all sites, with the single exception of the qasr at Tala, lessthan a kilometer from Meninx ��, where seventh-century eastern ampho-rae suggest that there was still some contact with the rest of the Mediter-ranean. From this period until the eleventh century we have been unableto identify any ceramics which could date a dark-age site. Of course thishardly suggests that these do not exist, but neither is there evidence thatthey do.

The development of settlement on the island thus runs from a verysparse, nucleated pattern in the fourth century B.C., to a highly articula-ted landscape of towns, ports, villas, farms and kilns in the second centu-

Fig. 4: Settlement in the second century A.D. (Michael Frachetti).

84 �������� �����

ry B.C., to settlement pattern in which the coast plays an every-increasingrole. There is no evidence that the Roman hegemony affected settlementon the island until the second century A.D., when the building of Meninx�� on the coast seems to have led to the gradual abandonment of Bourgouand Meninx �.

��� ����� ���� 85