THE EXCAVATIONS OF CARTHAGE. 1 



By Philippe Beeger. 



For some time Carthage, which seemed to have been so completely 

 destroyed by the Romans that its very ruins had disappeared, has 

 again been attracting public attention. But a few weeks ago the 

 reports of the Academie des Inscriptions told the tale of new discov- 

 eries made in the necropolises of Carthage by the indefatigable zeal of 

 Pere Delattre. 



The interest aroused by this resurrection of the past has overstepped 

 the confines of the learned world. Tourists hasten to attend the open- 

 ing of the tombs in the hope of being present when relics of the time 

 of the Magos, the Hamilcars, and the Hannibals are brought to light. 

 The Government, too, has realized the importance of these discoveries 

 for the history of Tunis. Under the enlightened patronage of our resi- 

 dent general and thanks to the subventions of the minister of public 

 instruction and of the Academie des Inscriptions, M. Paul Gauckler, 

 director of the Service des Antiquites et des Arts in Tunis, erected a 

 shed beside Pere Delattre's, and in continuing the very line of excava- 

 tion that has yielded Pere Delattre such happy results at the first 

 stroke of the pickax he has come upon a mine richer than any yet 

 worked. 



Under a layer of the Byzantine period he discovered a carefully 

 mured up sanctuary of the Roman epoch. In this subterranean cham- 

 ber, awaiting better times, doubtless, and protected against the zeal of 

 the new religion, had been piled up lists of priests, votive offerings, 

 Mithraic groups, a bull's head bearing a votive inscription to semibar- 

 barous gods between its horns, and marble statues, many of them 

 worthy to appear beside works of the great era of classic Greece. Then, 

 under the Roman, he found in the Phoenician layer, studied by Pere 

 Delattre, tombs of the same architecture and with the same contents as 

 those excavated by his predecessor, but singularly rich, containing 

 rings, bracelets, gold necklaces — real treasures, such as would have 

 made the heart of Dureau de La Malle and of Beule leap for joy. 



1 Translated from Revue des Deux Mond.es, VoL CLIII, 1899, pp. 658-676. 



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