Provenance and Distribution of Neo-Punic Ceramics at Zita, Southern Tunisia, and Beyond.

Summary

The site of Zita is an urban mound located in southern Tunisia and situated along an ancient trade route from Carthage to Tripoli. It is the highest point on a peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea across from the Island of Djerba, often identified as the Island of Calypso of the Lotus-Eaters from the Odyssey. Established as a Carthaginian settlement around 500 BCE, the city became a Roman regional center in the 1st century CE. Zita still has industrial features such as ceramic kilns and metallurgical zones. The ceramics and presence of kiln zones provide the opportunity to characterize the full spectrum of production and/or import and the site. In this study a high resolution geochemical analysis by ICP-OES/MS (n=145) has been carried out in order to detect the provenance of these ceramics and provide an analytical reference set of data for ceramic production in this part of North Africa. This paper emphasizes provenance of these materials as a key concept to understand the development of trade and technology through time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Wheel of Fortune: Ceramic Analysis and the Study of Technology, Exchange, and Sociopolitical Change in the Mediterranean and Greater Near East   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16878