The construction of street pavements, at least in the third century bce, may have been a centralized initiative as the “Urbanistic Inscription” from Carthage suggests (Lancel 1995: 142–44). It mentions the People of Carthage as the contracting authority in the year of the suffetes Safat and Adonibaal. The costs were shared by several artisans’ and traders’ corporations, among which were the goldsmiths, the manufacturers of vessels, and the shoemakers. Undoubtedly, the changes in street management and house floor construction by 425 bce are to be connected with a sophisticated system of waste management in which both household waste and human and animal feces were collected, the former to be used in landfills, as foundations for further urban development, and the latter for manuring the horticulture in the immediate hinterland of Carthage. This system of feces collection, similar to that by the Greek koprologoi, seems confirmed by the finds of latrines or toilet pits in the domestic quarters that date to the last quarter of the fifth and fourth centuries bce (Docter 2005; Docter et al. 2006: 47–50; Maraoui Telmini 2011, 2012). One may only guess how earlier houses had arranged for their feces disposal, since no clear spatial provisions for toilets can be discerned. In the face of absence of clear latrines, the excavators of Kerkouane suggest that the inhabitants used chamber pots in secluded parts of the houses (Fantar 1985: 359–61), which may also have been the case in Early Punic Carthage (Maraoui Telmini 2011: 53).
In Carthage, water was initially provided by wells that were dug deep into the virgin soil. The example excavated below the Decumanus Maximus suggests that initially the well was situated in an open space accessible to several adjacent houses (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 62–65, 81, 178–84). Only in a second phase were the well and courtyard included in the confinements of one house, and connected with a small covered room that may be interpreted as a well-house. At least from the middle of the fourth century bce on, cisterns started to replace the wells, probably owing to the growing demand by an increasingly larger urban population, and definitely favored by the technological advance in producing hydraulic mortars. Similar chronologies seem attested in Punic Sardinia, Selinus on Sicily, and Pantelleria (Helas et al. 2011: 88–93, 199, 270–71; Mezzolani 2014; Schön 2014). By the end of Carthage’s existence, every house had been provided with at least one cistern, of the oblong-, L-, and bottle-shaped type, the latter being the less common one (Lancel 1995: 167–71; Tang 2005: 83–85, 372–76; Mezzolani 2014: 137). The stratigraphically earliest oblong cistern in Carthage (mid-fourth century bce) was dug diagonally in an existing rectangular room and had capacity of 11.5 cubic m (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 136–42, 211–12). Its well-head was raised twice, with every major renovation of the house and raising of floor level; the 146 bce pavement ending up 1.7 m above the cistern’s upper border. The interior’s mortar seems to have been redone only once. Carthaginian cisterns could hold between 5 and 20 cubic m and were fed by means of terracotta and lead pipes, draining the water from the flat or slightly inclined roofs (Rakob 1991: 213). In Sardinia, the capacities ranged from 3 to 71 cubic m (Mezzolani 2014: 146–47), and in Pantelleria from 5 to 65 cubic m (Schön 2014: 109). In house 2 in Cerro del Villar (figure 28.1), one room (2) has been interpreted as a “cistern”; with its wall partially covered with mudbricks, one may perhaps call it a “water catchment basin.”
Apart from providing sufficient drinking water for each household during the year, these cisterns may have held sufficient capacity to provide also for sanitary uses of water. Carthage’s houses have yielded installations for both washing (basins) in hydraulic mortar and for bathing in the shape of bathrooms or shower rooms (Lancel 1982: 114–19; Lancel 1995: 165; Mezzolani 1999a; Fumadó 2007; Maraoui 2012: 23–28); terracotta bathtubs that probably had been set into mortar constructions appear also, especially at Carthage and Selinus (Lancel 1982: 31–32, 54–55; Fumadó Ortega 2007: 109; Helas et al. 2011: 95–96, 271–73). The most extensive evidence for such bathing installations comes from Kerkouane, where most houses had fixed sitz-baths made in hydraulic mortar, mostly as part of extended bathrooms (Fantar 1985: 303–99). For some of these, a more public function within the domestic structures has been suggested, especially for those near the urban sanctuary. In Kerkouane, water was provided by wells, mostly set in the courtyards or corridors (Fantar 1985: 400–20).
The ground plans of Punic houses in the central and western Mediterranean generally follow those attested in the Levantine coast (figure 28.2). Beginning in the late fourth century bce, architectural elements from the Hellenistic world found their way into the Punic building practice, like the peristyle and wall decorations in the Constructive Style, in Carthage, particularly with elements from the Doric order (Lancel 1982: 182–90; Tang 2005: 88–89; Niemeyer et al. 2007: 256–60; Helas et al. 2011: 72–88). At the same time, however, wall decoration shows Egyptian influences, especially in the profiles. Despite these “international” influences, the core of Carthaginian residential architecture remained typically Punic, particularly through the preference for a combination of long narrow corridors and courtyards.
Figure 28.2 Selinus. Punic house types and their derivation from Levantine house types.
Source: Helas 2009: 300, fig. 11; courtesy S. Helas.
The city’s general outlook would have been totally different from that of other, Greek, or otherwise Mediterranean cities. The houses would have consisted of at least one, but usually more levels and were all provided with flat roofs on which part of the family and social life would have taken place. The Greek author Appian (8.19.128), drawing on the firsthand report of Polybius (present at Carthage’s siege in 149–146 bce), mentions houses of no less than six stories. These would have constituted the first apartment blocks of antiquity. One should, however, consider the possibility of a distorted perspective: the Romans looking for three years at the besieged city from considerable distance may have taken three- or four-storied houses built against the slope of the Byrsa hill, one behind the other, as six-storied house blocks (Rakob 1991: 240). A Late Punic gold sheet house model from the Circular Harbor of Carthage, however, shows that four-storied houses did exist at the time (Fantar 1985: 11, 43). The model offers a unique view of the disposition of rectangular and square windows of uneven sizes. Several houses in Carthage have given indications for wooden staircases, with both straight and 90-degree turnabout examples, possibly even with a landing (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 146–47, 195–99), as attested in Selinus (Helas et al. 2011: 46–48, 210–13). Sometimes the lower steps consisted of ashlars or were built up with rubble (Fantar 1985: 543–71, 603–18; Chelbi 2004: 53). In the Phoenician site of Toscanos, a full ashlar staircase of at least seven steps has been found, dating to the seventh century bce (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 442–44).
Saddleback roofs and accessory terracotta tile roof systems seem to be completely absent from Carthage. The few terracotta tiles found in settlement contexts are mostly imported from the Greek world and may have served other purposes—for example, roofing of small porticoes (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 109, 128, 260–67).
Phoenician-Punic House Typologies and Sizes
Although for many aspects of the residential architecture the example of Carthage finds comparisons in other Punic and Phoenician settlements, sometimes there are considerable differences, which partly correspond to differences of scale, function, or chronology. The settlement of Sa Caleta on the southwest coast of Ibiza, dated to the last third of the eighth and the whole seventh centuries bce, is composed of detached houses that seem dispersed over the promontory (but may have covered the whole site), without any overarching orientation, partly clustering around communal open spaces with an equally communal large round bread oven (Ramon Torres 2007).
Another well-known differing case is the “Casa dei Mosaici” or “Casa dei Capitelli” on the island of Mozia (Acquaro 2015). Although the house provides prime evidence for Punic reoccupation of the island after the Syracusan sack of 397 bce, its Greek architectural affiliations have been often noted. Apart from the figur
al black and white pebble mosaics with meander and lotus-palmette borders, the house was provided with a peristyle of Doric and one Corinthian column, partially covered with terracotta tiles in the Corinthian system. It has been variously been interpreted as an elite house with reception rooms for dining and drinking, but more recently as an hestiatorion, serving more public functions (Acquaro 2015).
This heterogeneity in house plans and structuring of the urban space is a clear warning that—perhaps contrary to the Classical Greek world—the notion “house type” should only be used with caution, since we should not a priori expect that Phoenician-Punic builders followed a catalogue of known types (Helas et al. 2011: 48). Still, in her analysis of space syntax, Helas has discerned four basic types of Punic house structures in the central and western Mediterranean that, in part, find their origins in the Near East (Helas 2009; Helas et al. 2011: 48–56). Earlier on, Punic house typologies had been proposed on the basis of different sites—for example, for Kerkouane (Fantar 1985: 647–78), Carthage (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 176–77), and Morro de Mezquitilla and Chorreras (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 445–50). Helas’s classification starts from the main constituent element in Punic domestic architecture, the open courtyard; position, size and access to this courtyard determine the differentiation in four main types, leaving aside a heterogeneous rest group (figure 28.2):
1. The “Four-Zone House” (“Vierzonenhaus”), also known as the “Mittelsaalhaus” (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 449) or “Porticus-Courtyard House” (“Portikus-Hof-Haus”). This type belongs in a South Phoenician tradition of the “Four-Room House.” In the east, the “Four-Zone Houses” and “Three-Zone Houses” are considered as the “Israelite Norm Houses,” especially common during Iron Age II, the period of the Phoenician expansion. In the east, these courtyards are mostly bordered by rows of pillars, contrary to their western successors. In Carthage, this type is first attested around 675 bce, when it has been connected with a new influx of settlers from the Levant (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 184–87).
2. The “Corridor-Courtyard House” (“Korridor-Hof-Haus”), which is a house with central courtyard and corridor leading to it.
3. The house with courtyard in a corner.
4. The house with a central square courtyard.
In the Middle and Late Punic period, pillars and columns become fashionable in the courtyard areas, probably under Greek influence, and mostly in the shape of a porticus duplex or triplex (Tang 2005: 86–87). Full peristyles are also attested in Carthage since the middle of the fourth century bce (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 195–96), in fourth-century Mozia, and in third-century Kerkouane (Fantar 1985: 181, 692–93).
Finally, house sizes could vary considerably, but the effective usable surface depended on the presence or absence of upper floors, and could also change over time through additions and outbuildings. Felix Arnold and Dirce Marzoli (2009: 450–51) distinguished six different scales of house sizes in the south of Spain: houses occupying up to 36, 39, 45, 60, 92, and 165 square m; houses up to 92 square m proved to be most popular; those up to 165 square m may have had special functions, like buildings C and H at Toscanos and the recently published building C8 on Mozia (Nigro and Spagnoli 2017: 10–17). These have been interpreted as a warehouse, funduq, or marketplace, but apparently always in combination with residential functions. The other ranges of house sizes, however, may have reflected differences in social status of the inhabitants.
Exterior and Interior Space and Functions
Although not all houses were provided with a courtyard, this enclosed space forms one of the most stable elements of Phoenician-Punic houses, providing both access and light and air to the adjacent rooms. Doors are not always preserved archaeologically, which complicates the reconstruction of circulation within the houses. Doors may have varied in width; examples measure 1 to 1.2 m in Phoenician sites in Iberia (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 442), while in Kerkouane they rarely surpass 1.5 m, but may be as narrow as 0.6 m for secondary rooms. In turn, ashlar thresholds mark the principal house entrances (Fantar 1985: 573–98, 622–45). Examples from Carthage and Selinus best allow the reconstruction of Punic doors and their disposition (Rakob 1991: 226–27; Helas et al. 2011: 44–46, 189–204). Evidence for rectangular windows mainly comes from Late Punic Carthage, both architecturally (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 146; Helas et al. 2011: 46) and in the gold sheet house model. Apart from this natural source of light, lighting within the houses seems to have been provided principally by oil lamps and additionally by hearths.
Evidence from Carthage shows that streets, once laid out, retained their course and remained in the same place for centuries (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 177–99); their layout within the urban tissue seems planned, and when houses were renovated or rebuilt, they do not seem to have infringed upon the extension of the streets. This suggests a certain level of central control over the public space, supported by the Late Punic “Urbanistic Inscription” mentioned before. Moreover, the fact that in the latest phase of this Punic Quarter a corner of a house was demolished in order to make room for a more spacious turn of the road leading up the Byrsa hill may be interpreted as a sign of central interference and priority of the public over the private domain (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 158–60, 197–99). In some smaller, less planned settlements, on the contrary, streets and outdoor space in general seem to have been considered as a rest space (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 451–53). Only in the small settlement of Las Chorreras do four houses seem to have been built sharing one single façade for their multiple doors, which is indicative of a more centrally organized planning (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 451–53). Streets varied in width from 1.5 to 3 m to 3.5 to 8 m. Especially in the more spacious, but unpaved, streets, the dwellers of the adjacent houses built raised steppingstones of ashlar or smaller flat stones in front of the house entrances, as we see in Toscanos and Cerro del Villar. The presence of feeding troughs for animals outside the houses, but within the street course, suggests a relatively fluid separation of private and public space (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 451); a similar feeding trough has been found in a room of House 2 in seventh-century bce Carthage, suggesting that small animals were kept in the confinements of the house (Niemeyer et al. 2007: 114, 766). In Selinus, around 30 percent of all houses had small stables, mostly accessible from the courtyard, where animals were kept, most likely donkeys, mules, or horses (Helas 2009: 303; Helas et al. 2011: 105). The presence in spaces or passage of cattle through streets has been attested by chemical analyses, as in the 5 m wide street in Cerro del Villar, seemingly a major artery of the settlement, where the already mentioned (work)shops were also situated (Aubet 1997: 200).
Food preparation spaces are marked by hearths or constructed and ceramic bread ovens (tannūr or tabouna), but not all houses seem to have had such installations. The placing of large round bread ovens in communal exterior spaces in the site of Sa Caleta, for example, suggests that they were shared by several adjacent households (Ramon Torres 2007: 132, 165, 176, 187, 205–206). The presence or absence of bread ovens may be signs of social stratification within the settlements of Iberia (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 450). In a similar way, specific cooking installations and equipment were probably linked to the gender and ethnicity of the inhabitants of the houses (Delgado and Ferrer 2007). The high percentage of handmade cooking pots that are characteristic of southern Iberian native populations points to the indigenous culinary traditions of those in charge of the food preparation. Bread ovens and bread baking trays, on the contrary, are typical signs of eastern Mediterranean cooking habits, so a multi-ethnic population may be reconstructed on this site (Delgado and Ferrer 2007: 25–27).
With a view toward the evacuation of smoke, most of the fireplaces and furnaces were likely situated in the open space of the courtyards or semi-covered by a patio, as archaeological remains show. The existence of portable braziers (braseros and canoun), in Carthage mostly in the Middle and Late Punic period, that could be placed anywhere in the house should warn against a rigid func
tional labeling of domestic space. Recent studies of Greek “kitchens” and cooking equipment show we need to disentangle the notions of cooking, food preparation, and eating from our idea of a fixed “kitchen,” as a specific location within the house, since cooking or reheating and consumption could move between inside and outside spaces depending on season and occasion (Foxhall 2007). Cooking places may have moved within and outside the house, probably also seasonally. There is no reason to suppose that this would have been different in the Phoenician-Punic world. Still, fixed fireplaces and hearths do appear within the confinements of the houses, as for example in Selinus and Monte Iato, sometimes with quarter-circular structures in the corner that served as a place for setting up a tabouna or tannūr (Helas et al. 2011: 98–102, 104–105, type 2; Russenberger 2016: 235–36, 239). Both in its corner placement and stone encasement, these are comparable with the fixed tabouna or tannūr in Cádiz that dates to the first half of the eighth century bce (Gener Basallote et al. 2014: 30–31) and to that from Cerro del Villar of similar date. Moreover, at House 2 in Cerro del Villar (figure 28.1), specific storage and cooking activities are tied to certain shapes of handmade pottery and occur only in three of the seven rooms (nos. 1, 3, 5). No bread ovens, baking trays, or other Phoenician cooking utensils have been found; cooking seems to have taken place in handmade portable braziers, which may also have served as sources of heating in winter.
Constructive Elements and Techniques
In some Phoenician-Punic houses, “furniture” formed an integral part of the architecture. First, fixed benches constructed of rubble and/or mudbrick were widely used, as attested in the Iberian Peninsula, in Ibiza (Sa Caleta), and in Tunisia (Kerkouane) (Ramon Torres 2007: 133; Rouillard et al. 2007: 125; Fantar 1985). In some cases these occur in connection with furnaces, likely as working space for food preparation or space to place the cooking equipment, like in Cádiz (Gener Basallote et al. 2014: 30–31). In house 2 at Cerro del Villar (figure 28.1), the room with benches has been interpreted, through the finds in situ, as a room used for living, consumption and resting/sleeping. In Las Chorreras, a wall niche ca. 90 cm above the present ground level (Arnold and Marzoli 2009: 443) may have served as a place to set a portable lamp. Both in Carthage around 425 bce and in Kerkouane, in the first half of the third century bce, rooms had been provided with stone boxes, built into the separating inner walls (Fantar 1985: 150–52, 280–81; Niemeyer et al. 2007: 117, 128, 193–95). These may have served as storage space within the houses. It is not impossible that the hollow quarter circular structures in the corners of some single-roomed structures of Sa Caleta (seventh century bce) and Selinus (Helas’s type 1, fourth century), served similar functions (Ramon Torres 2007: 130, 134, 180, 183; Helas et al. 2011: 98–99). In Late Punic Carthage, a few houses knew a kind of safe-deposit or strongbox, built into the floor below the pavement, with a small rectangular opening giving access to a larger hidden box (Rakob 1991: 20–24; Docter et al. 2006: 67–70; Niemeyer et al. 2007: 166–67). One may assume that their entrances had been closed by a fitting stone and that carpets or mats would have covered and concealed them.
The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean Page 64