ABSTRACT

By the 4th Century, the roadstead along the shore of the lake of Tunis had been supplemented by an arti cial channel extending for nearly a kilometre northward through the marshy lagoons to the area of pottery works and iron foundries next to Carthage’s southern walls. Not much of this facility remains, for it was later replaced by the famous and still visible enclosed arti cial ports. But wooden docks, for example, have been identi ed from evidence of post-holes in the soil of the Îlot de l’Amirauté, the little island in the circular port – now a shallow lake – which was built at the northern end of the old lagoon area in the late 3rd or early 2nd Century.