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Thread: remnants of Carthaginian culture?
fomalhaut 19:57 03-28-2011
Out of all the great civilizations of the era, I find Carthage to be the most interesting. A mix between Phoenician, Hellenistic, and North African, Iberian(?) cultures creating a huge trading empire to take on the fledgling Res Publica and ultimately lose.

following the total destruction of Carthage by the Romans, did the Carthaginian culture and language completely disappear? Surely there must have been punic citizens maybe not in Carthage itself when it was destroyed? they were traders after all. Or what about the Balearic islands? Southern Iberia?

I just find it very interesting that such a dominant and powerful culture could have disappeared completely without maybe some refugee enclaves, maybe back to Phoenicia itself? Or to Hellas?

any recommending readings i would love to check out.

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Fluvius Camillus 20:12 03-28-2011
Originally Posted by fomalhaut:
Out of all the great civilizations of the era, I find Carthage to be the most interesting. A mix between Phoenician, Hellenistic, and North African, Iberian(?) cultures creating a huge trading empire to take on the fledgling Res Publica and ultimately lose.

following the total destruction of Carthage by the Romans, did the Carthaginian culture and language completely disappear? Surely there must have been punic citizens maybe not in Carthage itself when it was destroyed? they were traders after all. Or what about the Balearic islands? Southern Iberia?

I just find it very interesting that such a dominant and powerful culture could have disappeared completely without maybe some refugee enclaves, maybe back to Phoenicia itself? Or to Hellas?

any recommending readings i would love to check out.
There is always some recommended reading, check out the EB Bibliography:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...m-Bibliography

The culture did not completely disappear, it just didn't have an impact on today's society like the Hellenes or Romani did.

Of course there is still Tunisia to see, I hear a trip to North Africa is quite cheap nowadays..

~Fluvius

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bobbin 20:25 03-28-2011
I think Punic was still spoken in north Africa up until it was replaced by Arabic in the 7th century.

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The_Blacksmith 21:40 03-28-2011
Im going to south spain in the summer and i thought... is there any sites of punic origin around Malaga?

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bobbin 23:16 03-28-2011
We Malaga was a Phoenician colony so I would guess so, don't know any specific sites though.

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moonburn 06:05 03-29-2011
herm carthaginian culture subsisted in roman agriculture and maritime ways i bet there are others but the romans probably masked them and then called it their own creation

during the debate about the people of sardinia i´ve read alot of articles about arqueological diggings that where wrongly considered romans when in fact they where at a closer look of either nuringhian-punii origin or just punic in origin so that shows that our lack of compreension of what was the punic culture makes us even today make mistakes in dating and caractherising some sites and thus not recognising the valour of punic culture

but the ship construction and most defenitly the roman agricultural knowledge borrowed alot from the punic writtings and treaties on those subjects so we can only conjecture that there where alot more subjects the romans took from them

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Ca Putt 11:07 03-29-2011
you could argue that as the carthagians were phoenicians and thus used the phoenician alphabet and as the greek alphabet is based on the phoenician and everybody knows on what the latin alphabet is based on, we today still write in something that has evolved from the alphabet used by the carthagians. bit scarce but the first thing that came to my mind.

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Hax 11:54 03-29-2011
I went to Carthage when I was younger, it's still there although..less..y'know, visible than it used to be. It's still there though.

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fomalhaut 17:38 03-29-2011
Originally Posted by Ca Putt:
you could argue that as the carthagians were phoenicians and thus used the phoenician alphabet and as the greek alphabet is based on the phoenician and everybody knows on what the latin alphabet is based on, we today still write in something that has evolved from the alphabet used by the carthagians. bit scarce but the first thing that came to my mind.
i thought of this as well but its really not quite what i had in mind.

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vartan 02:22 03-30-2011
Probably plenty of remnants of Carthaginian "culture" around, and probably things most of us cannot name (I sure cannot!) Let us falsely assume all of the Carthaginian domain to fall under one distinct culture. I suppose you could ask what innovations the Carthaginians brought about during their age. Then you could possibly make an argument that distinctly relates these ancient innovations to modern day derivations, if that is how you wish to look at them. From a linguistic perspective I would suggest taking a look at possible loans in the tongues of peoples directly (or indirectly) affected by Carthage. Considering the Carthaginians were, as we are taught, a maritime trading people, you may look at shipping and economic innovations; what similarities do you find in contemporary overseas trade? Enjoy the mind exercise!

EDIT: Not a student of Carthage. Someone mentioned the EB Biblio thread. First place to look, indeed!

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artavazd 04:42 03-31-2011
business!!

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fomalhaut 05:47 03-31-2011
Originally Posted by artavazd:
business!!
could you elaborate on this?

and i just realized in my first EB Kart Hadast campaign that one of the conditions is to retake your homeland Phoinike! i think that is really really cool.

It was Carthage that i played my most memorable campaign in vanilla, and it was because of their Sacred Band (a pike phalanx in full Corinthian helmets and greek panopaly with the horse hair hahaha wow) that i started looking into history a bit more as they were quite interesting. this lead me eventually to EB! just so yall know

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moonburn 05:48 03-31-2011
i recently discovered that the worst insult in my language comes from the word kar´alia wich is a semitic word so punii had insults

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fomalhaut 05:53 03-31-2011
i'm going to assume do to their diversity that the Phoenicians had a lot of insults. i mean, those dirty rotten Libyans, Massylians, Nurigians, Numidians, Garamantines, Iberians, dirty rotten whoever is in control of Phoenicia or Tyre

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Sabazios 15:31 03-31-2011
Originally Posted by moonburn:
i recently discovered that the worst insult in my language comes from the word kar´alia wich is a semitic word so punii had insults
Well every language has insults, wouldnt even be surprised when the first spoken words were insults.

Edit: I am curious now about that specific insult, so enlighten me ^^

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Zarax 21:09 03-31-2011
Sardinia has several well preserved traces of punic culture.
The southern part of the island was thoroughly colonized (Nora was as old as Carthage itself) and unlike other parts of the punic empire many sites had an extremely gradual evolution.
Punic language and institutions like the Shophets survived until the 2nd century AD while traditional art still bears today a few traces of the ancient past, while a few place names still bear close derivatives of punic words.

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artavazd 01:08 04-01-2011
Originally Posted by fomalhaut:
could you elaborate on this?

and i just realized in my first EB Kart Hadast campaign that one of the conditions is to retake your homeland Phoinike! i think that is really really cool.

It was Carthage that i played my most memorable campaign in vanilla, and it was because of their Sacred Band (a pike phalanx in full Corinthian helmets and greek panopaly with the horse hair hahaha wow) that i started looking into history a bit more as they were quite interesting. this lead me eventually to EB! just so yall know
The Phoenicians were probably the first civilization to take international trade (business) to great lengths. There are evidence of Phoenician trade all the way in Britain. Carthage its self was a Phoenician trading settlement.

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Lazy O 19:28 04-02-2011
Clear Glass???

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