Factional Capitals of the EB II time frame

[cmacq]

Carthage Punic North Africa


The first factional capital is Carthage, Carthago, Karkhedon, or Qart-ḥadast (new town). Within the EB setting and time frame Carthage, with possible half a million residents, was the second largest city in the Mediterranean world, behind only Alexandria. However, at the end of the Third Punic War the Romans effectively removed this factional capital as an urban and commercial center. The following model is the wall plan model of the Late Punic Carthage as viewed from the mainland at the bottom looking at a high angle, towards the east.

One will notice the complexity of the defensive system as an enemy approaching from the west is forced into the narrow isthmus that separated Carthage with its promontory, from the mainland. Historically these walls enclosed a governmental/religious area called Byrsa Hill (center right), a residential/mercantile area with protected harbors (right), and a funerary/lower class residential-commercial area (left). Historically these walls extended about 23 miles (37 km). Its important to note I’ve omitted one of the three landward picket walls (low center). The very small figure at the bottom center of the model, is a large palm tree offered for scale. This view is from the south, looking at a high angle, to the north.

This last view is also from the south, but at a low angle, looking north. For scale one may note a very small human figure just to the left of the seaward entry of the mercantile harbor. Remember this scale is about 10:1, which means the defensive system covers the actual area of the city, however the walls and towers appear about 10 times larger than they should.

This photo provides a better sense of the actual scale and shows the remains of the military and mercantile harbors, looking from the south to the north. Its reported that the circular military harbor could hold over 200 vessels. At the scale I provide, the model military harbor could maybe hold about 20 ships?