The Punic people, usually known as the CarthaginiansSalimbeti, Andrea; d'Amato, Raffaele (2014). The Carthaginians 6th-2nd Century BC. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781782007777. (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the western Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term Punic, the Latin equivalent of the Greek-derived term Phoenician, is exclusively used to refer to Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, following the line of the Greek East and Latin West. The largest Punic settlement was Ancient Carthage, but there were 300 other settlements along the North African coast from Leptis Magna in Libya to Mogador in Morocco,Itineraria Phoenicia Edward Lipiński p 466 as well as western Sicily, southern Sardinia, the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, Malta, and Ibiza. Their language, Punic, was a variety of Phoenician, one of the Northwest Semitic languages originating in the Levant.
Literary sources report two moments of Tyrian settlements in the west, the first in the 12th century BC (the cities Utica, Lixus, and Gadir) that hasn't been confirmed by archaeology, and a second at the end of the 9th century BC, documented in written references in both east and west, which culminated in the foundation of colonies in northwest Africa (the cities Auza, Carthage) and on the southern coast of Cyprus (Kition) and formed part of trading networks linked to Tyre, Arvad, Byblos, Berytus, Ekron, and Sidon in the Phoenician homeland. Although links with Phoenicia were retained throughout their history, they also developed close trading relations with other peoples of the western Mediterranean, such as Sicilians, Sardinians, Berbers, Greeks, and Iberians, and developed some cultural traits distinct from those of their Phoenician homeland. Some of these were shared by all western Phoenicians, while others were restricted to individual regions within the Punic sphere.
The western Phoenicians were arranged into a multitude of self-governing city-states. Carthage had grown to be the largest and most powerful of these city-states by the 5th century BC and gained increasingly close control over Punic Sicily and Sardinia in the 4th century BC, but communities in Iberia remained outside their control until the second half of the 3rd century BC. In the course of the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), the Romans challenged Carthaginian hegemony in the western Mediterranean, culminating in the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, but the Punic language and Punic culture endured under Roman rule, surviving in some places until late antiquity.
Terminology
The English adjective "Punic" is used in modern academic writing to refer to the western Phoenicians. The proper nouns "Punics" and "Punes" were used in the 16th century, but are obsolete and there is no proper noun in current use. "Punic" derives from the Latin and , which were used mostly to refer to the Carthaginians and other western Phoenicians. These terms derived from the Ancient Greek word (), plural form (), which was used indiscriminately to refer to both western and eastern Phoenicians. Latin later borrowed the Greek term a second time as , plural form , also used indiscriminately.
Numismatic evidence from Sicily shows that some western Phoenicians made use of the term "Phoinix", but it is not clear if they used that term for themselves; they may have called themselves 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍𐤌 (, "Canaanites"). A passage from Augustine has often been interpreted as indicating that they called themselves Canaanites ( in Latin), (see in the Latin source: Unde interrogati rustici nostri, quid sint, punice respondentes: chanani, corrupta scilicet sicut in talibus solet una littera, quid aliud respondent quam: chananaei?) Augustine writes:
It has been argued by J.C. Quinn that this is a misreading, since although this term is "applied to Levantine people" in the Hebrew Bible, "there is no other evidence for self-identification as Canaanite, and so we might suspect him of learned optimism."
However, this opinion is not shared by all scholars. Classicist Carolina López-Ruiz stresses that Phoenician identity existed as a recognizable collective, despite city-state fragmentation and limited internal literary sources. She argues against deconstructionist claims by “Phoenicoskeptics” that rely on “silence” in emic narratives. Archaeological, epigraphic, and external evidence (Greek, Roman and others) shows Phoenicians shared language, rituals, dress, occupations, commercial networks, and cultural practices. They used self-referents such as “Canaan/Canaanite,” recognized ancestral bonds (e.g., Tyre refusing to attack Carthage as “sons”), and projected collective identity externally (e.g., palm tree/phoenix symbols on Carthaginian coins). Like the Greeks, they organized as independent city-states without a unified polity, yet this did not preclude a broader ethnic/cultural sense of kinship and shared heritage. External observers treated them as a distinct group, and internal evidence supports that they did the same.
In modern academic writing, the term Punic exclusively refers to Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean. Specific Punic groups are often referred to with hyphenated names, like Siculo-Punic or Sardo-Punic. (This practice has ancient roots: Hellenistic Greek authors sometimes referred to the Punic inhabitants of central northern Africa (Libya) as Liby-Phoenicians.)
Overview Like other Phoenician people, their urbanized culture and economy were strongly linked to the sea. They settled over Northwest Africa in what is now Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya and established some colonies in Southern Iberia, Sardinia, Sicily, Ebusus, Malta and other small islands of the western Mediterranean. In Sardinia and Sicily, they had strong economic and political ties to the independent natives in the hinterland. Their naval presence and trade extended throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, to Atlantic Iberia, the British Isles, the Canaries.
Technical achievements of the Punic people of Carthage include the development of uncolored glass and the use of limestone from lakeside deposits to improve the purity of smelted iron.
Religion
The Punic religion was a direct continuation of the Phoenician variety of the polytheistic ancient Canaanite religion. At Carthage, the chief gods were Baal Hammon (purportedly "Lord of the Brazier")Walbank, Frank William (1979). A Historical Commentary on Polybius, Volume 2, Clarendon Press, p. 47 and his consort Tanit, but other deities are attested, such as Eshmun, Melqart, Ashtart, Reshef, Sakon, and Shamash. The Carthaginians also adopted the Greek goddesses Demeter and Kore in 396 BC, as well as the Egyptian deities Bes, Bastet, Isis, Osiris, and Ra. Different Punic centres had their own distinct pantheons; in Punic Sardinia, for example, Sid or Sid Babi (known to the Romans as Sardus Pater and apparently an indigenous deity) received worship as the son of Melqart and was particularly associated with the island.
The Carthaginians appear to have had both part-time and full-time priests, the latter called (singular , cognate with the Hebrew term kohen), led by high priests called , as well as lower-ranking religious officials, called "servants" or "slaves" of the sanctuary (male: , female: or ), and functionaries like cooks, butchers, singers, and barbers. Sanctuaries had associations, referred to as in Punic and Neo-Punic inscriptions, who held ritual banquets. Some Phoenician communities practiced sacred prostitution; in the Punic sphere this is archeologically attested at Sicca Veneria (El Kef) in western Tunisia and the sanctuary of Venus Erycina at Eryx in western Sicily. Punic sacred prostitution is mentioned by Latin author Valerius Maximus, who describes how Carthaginian women gained gifts by engaging in prostitution with visitors at Sicca Veneria.
Various Greek and Roman sources describe and criticize the Carthaginian practice of sacrificing children by burning. Many ancient Greek and Latin authors describe some version of child sacrifice to "Cronos" (Baal Hammon). These descriptions were compared to those found in the Hebrew Bible describing the sacrifice of children by burning to Baal and Moloch at a place called Tophet. The ancient descriptions were seemingly confirmed by the discovering of the so-called Tophet of Salammbô in Carthage in 1921, which contained the urns of cremated children. However, modern historians and archaeologists debate the reality and extent of this practice. Some scholars propose that all remains at the tophet were sacrificed, whereas others propose that only some were.
Distribution Tunisia
Tunisia was among the areas settled during the first wave of Phoenician expansion into the west, with the foundation of Utica and Hippo Regius taking place around the end of the twelfth century. Further Phoenician settlements, were established in the following centuries, including Hippo Diarrhytus and Hadrumetum.
The foundation of Carthage on the site of modern Tunis is dated to the late 9th century BC by Greek literary sources and archaeological evidence. The literary sources attribute the foundation to a group of Tyrian refugees led by Dido and accompanied by Cypriots. Archaeologically, the new foundation is characterised by the focus of religious cult on the gods Tanit and Baal Hammon, by the development of a new religious structure, the tophet, and by a marked degree of cosmopolitanism.
Carthage gained direct control over the Cap Bon peninsula, operating a sandstone quarry at El Haouaria from the middle of the seventh city and establishing the city of Kerkouane in the early sixth century. The region was very fertile and allowed Carthage to be economically self-sufficient. The site of Kerkouane has been extensively excavated and provides the best-known example of a Punic city from North Africa.
Punic control also extended inland over the Libyans. Punic influence on inland regions is seen from the early 6th century, notably at Althiburos, where Punic construction techniques and red-slip pottery appear at the time. Armed conflicts with the Libyans are first attested in the early 5th century, with several revolts attested in the fourth century (398, 370s, 310-307 BC). In the late 4th century, Aristotle reports that the Carthaginians dealt with local discontent by resettling poor citizens in cities in Libya. These settlements had to provide tribute and military manpower when required, but remained self-governing. There is some evidence for intermarriage between Punic people and Libyans.
Sardo-Punics
From the 8th century BC, Phoenicians founded several cities and strongholds on strategic points in the south and west of Sardinia, often peninsulas or islands near estuaries, easy to defend and natural harbours, such as Tharros, Bithia, Sulci, Nora and Caralis (Cagliari). The north, the eastern coast and the interior of the island continued to be dominated by the indigenous Nuragic civilization, whose relations with the Sardo-Punic cities were mixed, including both trade and military conflict. Intermarriage and cultural mixing took place on a large scale. The inhabitants of the Sardo-Punic cities were a mixture of Phoenician and Nuragic stock, with the latter forming the majority of the population. Sardinia had a special position because it was central in the western Mediterranean between Carthage, Spain, the river Rhône, and Etruria. Iglesiente was an important mining area for the metals lead and zinc.