Circular military harbour (cothon) of Carthage
Puerto circular militar (cothon) de Cartago
- Date
- c. 220 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia
- Credited to
- Carthage (Punic people)
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
An artificial inner harbour, a central island ringed by covered dry-docks for some 220 ships, linked by canals to the commercial harbour. It was the Punic model of a naval arsenal, supervised from the admiralty on the island.
Phases and chronology are debated: Hurst places the circular cothon about 220 BC over earlier structures, other authors propose phases from the 4th century BC. The 220 slips come from Appian and are approximate.
What it led to
- a naval power able to sustain the Punic wars against Rome
- model for closed cothon-type harbours at Mogador, Motya and other Punic sites
- a reference for harbour archaeology, studied by Hurst in the 1970s