The Bir Messaouda Basilica

Pilgrimage and the Transformation of an Urban Landscape in Sixth Century AD Carthage

Richard Miles, Simon Greenslade

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781785706813
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Archeologia

This volume charts the radical transformation of an inner city neighbourhood in late antique Carthage which was excavated over a five-year period by a team from the University of Cambridge. Bordering the main thoroughfare leading from the Brysa Hill to the ports, the neighbourhood remained primarily a residential one from the second century until 530s AD when a substantial basilica was constructed over the eastern half of the insula. Further extensive modifications were made to the basilica half-a-century later when the structures on the western half of the insula were demolished and the basilica greatly enlarged with the addition of a new east-west aisles, a large monumental baptistery and a crypt. By carefully reconstructing the complex architectural plan of this innovative building, this study shows how the re-modelled Bir Messaouda basilica was transformed into a major pilgrimage centre overturning established tradition that located such complexes outside the city walls. The Bir Messaouda basilica provides important insights into the transition between Vandal and Byzantine control of the city, the development of a new Christian inter-mural urban landscape in the sixth century AD, and the significance of the pilgrimage in reinforcing ecclesiastical authority in post-Justinianic North Africa.

1

Late Antique Carthage: archaeological and historical contexts

Richard Miles

Introduction

Approximately a century and a half after its celebrated destruction by the legions of Scipio Aemilianus in 146 BC, the city of Carthage, Rome’s greatest historical rival, was, after a number of false starts in the late Republican period, re-founded by the Roman emperor Augustus.1 Carthage was the provincial capital of Africa Proconsularis and remained one of the most politically, economically and culturally important urban centres in the Roman Empire throughout the Imperial period. Carthage was the major mercantile hub for a region that was a significant producer of grain and oil and the African headquarters for the annonae fleet that transported foodstuffs to Rome on a massive scale.2 Even after its capture by the Vandals in AD 439 Carthage preserved its dominant position acting as the regnal capital for the Vandal kings throughout their tenure. After the conquest of Africa by the armies of the Eastern Roman emperor, Justinian, in AD 533–534, Carthage once more preserved its supremacy in the region serving as the administrative capital of the Byzantine administration until the late 7th century and the Arab Conquest.

It is with the later periods of Carthage’s long history that this study primarily concerns itself. The Bir Messaouda Basilica was first built in the 530s AD before experiencing a further major building phase in the 570s. The relatively well-recorded series of events that led to the control of the city changing hands three times in late antiquity, combined with the city’s status as one of the most important centres of western Christianity, mean that our understanding of the period in which The Bir Messaouda Basilica was in use is heavily influenced by a strong set of historical narratives. These are narratives with which the archaeologist must engage, yet the terms of that engagement firstly need to be carefully considered.

Historical sources generally present both opportunities and challenges for archaeological fieldwork and interpretation, and Late Antique Carthage serves as an excellent example of both the possibilities and limitations of the textual record to the archaeologist. The experience of over a century of excavation in Carthage has shown that archaeologists who treat contemporary historical and religious texts as mines of empirical data will almost always be disappointed. A particularly pertinent case in point is Carthage’s rich Christian legacy. A considerable number of churches and other cult buildings are mentioned in letters, sermons, council records, treatises and histories. However, not one of the significant number of ecclesiastical structures that have been uncovered by archaeologists in Carthage can unequivocally be matched with textual descriptions.3 During and after the gradual abandonment of the city from the late 7th century AD onwards its structures were extensively plundered for buildings materials for the nearby city of Tunis as well as other settlements, meaning that very few inscriptions which might act as identifiers have survived in situ.

Rather than providing opportunities for factual crossreference, the rich material and textual records of Late Antique Carthage are largely parallel narratives. Yet, it is often that very dissonance that makes the historical record such an important aid in the broader contextualization of often disparate and extremely fragmentary archaeological data, whilst material evidence with its emphasis on longterm continuities provides an important counterpoint to the dramatic political and religious changes that dominate the literary testimony. This is certainly the case with The Bir Messaouda Basilica.

Narratives: vandal neglect and imperial restoration

Two powerful interconnected narratives have dominated the history of Late Antique Carthage: Vandal neglect followed by a renaissance under Justinian, saviour of Africa. Each has had a significant but problematic impact on how the material evidence from these periods has been interpreted.

In the AD 480s, the African churchman Victor of Vita in his History of the Vandal Persecutions described the ruinous legacy of the Vandal kings on the physical fabric of Carthage:

In some buildings, in particular mansions and houses where fire had not succeeded, they smashed the roofs into pieces and razed the fine walls, so that the past beauty of the towns can no longer be appreciated. There are a multitude of cities with few or no populations, for after what took place, those that still stand remain desolate. Here at Carthage they completely destroyed the odeon, theatre, temple of Memoria and what people called the Via Caelestis.4

According to Victor, the Vandal king’s neglect and destruction of the city of Carthage was symptomatic of their barbarism and heretic (Homoian) beliefs, both of which stood as the root causes of the main subject of his work: the grievous persecution of the African Homoousian Church and their Romano-African congregations. In Victor’s work, Romanity and the Homoousian cause were one and the same in opposition to barbarity and Homoianism.

The dominant theme of African Nicene sources was the dogged resistance shown by both ecclesiastical and lay Romano-African communities against the relentless persecution by the Vandal kings and their Homoian Church.5 In Victor’s History of the Vandal Persecutions, the Vandal kings were portrayed as Homoian zealots willing to use extremely violent and repressive measures to stamp out the Homoousian Church in their North African dominions. Victor’s work creates an escalating scheme of persecution that commences with the leadership and clergy of the Homoousian Church before engulfing the Romano-African lay elites and then all socio-economic groups in North Africa. Victor described how under the Vandal king Huneric (AD 477–484), the Romano-African Homoousian population, men, women and children, were punished with forced labour, starvation, exile, torture and death.6 Thousands of members of the North African Homoousian bishops and clergy were sent into desert exile.7 All the churches and property of the Homoousian Church were to be closed and handed over to the royal treasuries or the Homoian Church.8 Nicene clergy were banned from association, practising baptisms or ordinations.9 Homoousian treatises were to be burnt. The Homoousian laity were forbidden from receiving legacies or making bequests. Members of the Homoousian Romano-African elite including estate owners and palace officials who refused to give up their faith were threatened with dismissal and huge fines. Judges who did not enforce these laws were to be sentenced to death, and other legal officials received fines.10 Homoousian bishops had their property confiscated and were sent off to work in forced manual labour.11 Across the Vandal kingdom Homoian thugs set upon Homoousian congregations and priests.12 Other Homoousian contemporary accounts such as the Passion of the Seven Monks, which recounted the savage martyrdom of seven ascetics from Gafsa, further reinforced the image of the Romano-African population suffering severe religious persecution under the Homoian Vandals.13 Even during the supposedly less repressive reigns of later Vandal kings such as Thrasamund, Homoousian writers proclaimed that the threat of violence and intimidation was always present.14

In terms of Carthage’s Christian buildings, contemporary hostile commentators sometimes portrayed the city’s churches and other ecclesiastical property as the victims of violent appropriation or impious neglect. For instance, Victor described how the Basilica Fausti was used as a holding station for captives that the Vandals brought back from Rome.15 For Vict...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Background and acknowledgments: Richard Miles
• 1. Late Antique Carthage: archaeological and historical contexts :Richard Miles
• 2. The early history of Bir Messaouda: Punic and Roman: Simon Greenslade and Richard Miles
• 3. The transition of Bir Messaouda in the early to mid-6th century AD: Simon Greenslade and Richard Miles
• 4.The transition of Bir Messaouda in the later 6th century AD: Simon Greenslade and Richard Miles
• 5. The baptistery and crypt:Simon Greenslade and Richard Miles
• 6. The later history of the basilica: Simon Greenslade and Richard Miles
• 7. The 6th-century mosaics at Bir Messaouda: Jane Chick
• 8. Plaster: Claudia Goodbrand
• 9. The glass from the excavation at Bir Messaouda: Sylvia Fünfschilling
• 10. The Bir Messaouda pottery: Claudia Goodbrand
• 11. The coins: Stefan Krmnicek
• 12. Metal building materials, personal and utilitarian objects and other small metal finds: Ralf Bockmann
• 13. Ceramic building material from the Bir Messaouda Excavations 2000–2002: Philip Mills
• 14. The stone finds: Ben Croxford
• 15.Conclusions: Richard Miles
• Appendix: The search for the Maritime Forum of Carthage: John Whitehouse and Sami Harize
• Bibliography
• Plate section