Talk:Ancient Carthage

Great article, but where is it?

Perhaps the map could show the actual location of Carthage? I suspect the map creator was operating with the ingrained knowledge of where the city was, but if everyone else also already knew where Carthage was, maybe they wouldn't be looking at an article on Carthage and looking at a map. --Kurt (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. Is it Tunisia? Is it Lebanon? We'll never know 95.93.65.89 (talk) 23:25, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

clearly some bad editorial choices have been made

Carthage, Ancient Carthage, History of Carthage, History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology? All these are articles with significant topical overlap, content duplication, poor maintenance, and limited mutual awareness between whoever has been developing them. I am not sure how this could happen, but it is certainly among the worse cases of WP:CFORK I have come across.

I suppose the first comment on this talkpage, "Why this page exists: Tho it was definately not a traditonal model, there was definately a Carthaginian Empire", speaks volumes about the level of editorial expertise that has gone into this. But why has this been allowed to go on festering since 2007? --dab (𒁳) 07:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I support History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology and Ancient Carthage being merged with History of Carthage. Kashta (talk) 14:13, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I also support merging "History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology" and "Ancient Carthage" with "History of Carthage". I think I'm up to the task of rewriting the material, as I've recently rewritten the entire text of History of Lisbon with references, incorporating the scant material there previously, except for the very last section, "21st Century", which I'm working on now.

This "History of Carthage" project will be much easier, as I won't have to create the entire text, and many of the refs have already been found. If editors can be patient, I will complete the work, then do some bold editing, as long as no one objects. I am open to suggestions. Carlstak (talk) 01:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok. Don't. History of Carthage is a history page, whereas this page is (or should be) devoted to an overview of the state itself. A merge with Carthage is certainly in order since Ancient Carthage is by far the WP:PRIMARY TOPIC for that namespace. Carthaginian Empire was always more appropriate and permitted Carthage to deal with the city itself, but some armchair historians took it upon themselves to muck things up and you probably can't get a consensus to restore it at this point.

History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology is just ridiculous and should of course be merged, though. [edit: However, in the main, it should be remerged to the articles branching out of History of Tunisia.] — LlywelynII 17:48, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm concerned by the current situation. It's not clear why there is a Carthage and a Ancient Carthage. Information in both articles appears to deal with the same place, which is known under the name Carthage. The term "Ancient Carthage" is not one I'm finding appears often in sources. I'm equally concerned that there is a History of Carthage and a History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology when both deal with the same topic. I'm also concerned with History of Punic-era Tunisia: culture which reads like an essay. I'm unclear if this is an appropriate encyclopaedia topic. It gets around 6 views a day which indicates that it is not an essential topic. My suggestion is to merge Ancient Carthage into Carthage; and merge History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology and History of Punic-era Tunisia: culture into History of Carthage. Far better for the general reader to have one informative and well written neutral article on the history of Carthage, rather than three which repeat information and present the reader with too much information. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:45, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

User:SilkTork, support the merge of Ancient Carthage and Carthage, since the names are currently nonsensical and ancient Carthage is the PRIMARYTOPIC. If the modern Tunisian settlement deserves a separate article, it doesn't belong at the main namespace. There was a rationale for the separation: "Ancient Carthage" was originally Carthaginian Empire while "Carthage" dealt with the city itself. That made sense but was nixed by historians who objected to that terminology as a form of virtue signaling to each another. Since they're basically right that current historians are oversensitive to the term out of loathing towards 19th-century Europe, we're stuck with covering both topics at a single article or with splitting our treatment of what is and has always been known as the Carthaginian Empire into Kingdom of Carthage and Carthaginian Republic.

That said, Carthage didn't actually hold all of modern Tunisia's territory and the History of ancient Tunisia does deserve its own existence. History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology and History of Punic-era Tunisia: culture are terribly named and might need merging back into History of Punic-era Tunisia or even History of ancient Tunisia, but not History of Carthage. — LlywelynII 20:41, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Discussion regarding merging History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology and History of Punic-era Tunisia: culture into History of Carthage at Talk:History of Carthage#Merge. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:53, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

The articles Ancient Carthage and History of Carthage appear to contain similar information. Does the existence of both of them make sense to historians of Carthage? Are the terms Punic Republic and Phoenician Republic (which appears as part of the explanation of the Carthage article) used by historians? Mcljlm (talk) 12:48, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

I strongly oppose, in the strongest possible terms, the merging of this article Ancient Carthage with Carthage (as was recently attempted here by User:JamesBWatson without consensus or even leaving a comment here on the talk page). This article "Ancient Carthage" is about the empire and the civilization itself, whereas the article "Carthage" should only be about the municipality, the city-state, and their unique republic. Punic Carthaginian civilization was much greater than one city, as evidenced by the creation of "New Carthage" (modern Cartagena, Spain) on the Iberian peninsula, contested grounds between the Roman Republic and Carthaginian realm. It's a shame that someone decided to divert the redirect-link "Carthaginian Empire" to the article on Carthage instead of this one here, but that is not the fault of this article. --Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Wording

Carlstak, "was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage. During the 7th to 3rd..." might be correct English but it distorts the actual meaning of Ancient Carthage. because the period separates the sentences that mention Carthage as a City-State and an Empire. Since as soon as the period ends at the sentence that says Carthage was a City-state, it pretty much wraps up the definition, or so it seems. So, may I suggest the following alternatives?

• 1"was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, during the 7th to 3rd..."
• 2"was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, and during the 7th to 3rd..."
• 3"was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, during which the 7th to 3rd..."
• 4"was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, that during the 7th to 3rd..."
• 5"was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, which during the 7th to 3rd..." (the "so-not proper English" version)

Or change the sentence for all I know, but as long as these sentence remain the same, I don't agree that there should be a period between these two sentences. (N0n3up (talk) 02:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC))

I've been busy on another project and haven't had a chance to get back to this. Your own talk page shows that you have a history of disputes and edit-warring with other editors over matters of English grammar and syntax, and have even been blocked because of it. I would suggest that whatever your other skills, these are not your strong points. I have returned the text to its long-standing form before your edits introduced a lack of clarity in its meaning. Carlstak (talk) 14:42, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks Carlstak, please concentrate on edit, not editors. You keep saying there are errors, when there are none (at least the second version of my edit). I already fixed all the grammatical errors and sounds perfect and up to stadards, whereas your edit blurs the actual meaning to the definition of ancient carthage. (N0n3up (talk) 02:20, 14 April 2016 (UTC))

I saw you opened a discussion above. Next time, let me know since I opened this without even knowing of the discussion you opened. (N0n3up (talk) 02:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC))

You should have gotten an alert when I used your username link (twice). The left notification button at the top of your special user page turns red when someone mentions you, just as if I pinged you. Carlstak (talk) 14:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

It didn't show up in my notification for some reason. My apologies. (N0n3up (talk) 06:14, 14 April 2016 (UTC))

• I don't think it's worth you guys arguing over this page, as I'm not sure we'll be keeping it. The situation regarding our articles on Carthage and Tunisia has been a little messy for a while, and we are in the process of sorting it out. As we now have an article dealing with the modern settlement (Carthage (municipality)) it is likely we'll be merging Ancient Carthage back into Carthage. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:36, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I applaud all the work you've done on merging and consolidating the various and redundant articles on the subject, SilkTork, and I support merging "Ancient Carthage" with "Carthage". Considering that I spent a lot of time researching and finding sources for this article (there were only 18 refs when I started, versus 171 now), I am concerned that all that work not be consigned to oblivion. I hope you will be able to save as much of it as possible. Carlstak (talk) 18:05, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

In the merging done so far I have kept the bulk of the original text, and placed attribution notices on those articles in which the text was placed. During the course of ongoing editing the original text is likely to be further amended as that is the way with Wikipedia. Additionally, as part of the concern is that the articles which were merged had an undue focus on the Berber people which distorted the facts, this needs to be addressed, and that means some of the original text will be adjusted to give a more accurate overview of the situation. I've not looked in depth at this article yet, but from looking it over briefly it seems pretty good, and it may well be that the bulk of this article will simply replace what is at Carthage. Also, as the title is a viable search term, we'll be keeping the title as a redirect, unlike titles such as "History of Punic-era Tunisia: chronology" which are not a viable search term. They were created just for the Wikipedia articles, and are misleading and potentially confusing, so are being removed from mainspace; this means they will gradually disappear from Wikipedia mirrors where they are creating some distortion. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:43, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, that sounds like a good plan. Thanks, SilkTork. Carlstak (talk) 13:56, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

SilkTork, I agree with you that this isn't worth arguing over. The edit clearly specifies that Ancient Carthage was a Phoenician City-State and it's empire, Like Rome is a city, and Ancient Rome was its empire or anything related to it (thus the denonym: Roman, Carthaginian). Whereas Carlstak's edit implies that Ancient Carthage was simply the city itself, which wasn't like this, otherwise we wouldn't have a Wikipedia article about the ancient city itself (see: Carthage). Although the merge you mentioned might be a good Idea, but if that's the case, we should keep in mind that Ancient Carthage was a civilization that encompassed a wider spectrum. Not a city but also an imperial civilization. Since the city is one thing and the empire is another, I think we should simply state that it was a civilization in the top lead. That's why you have articles like this: Rome, Roman Empire and Ancient Rome.

And Carlstak The way you went ahead toward my personal information and blasted about me not understanding grammatical errors (Personal attack), not to mention, modifying the discussion by adding your responses between my posts to "make it look" as if we actually had a dialogue speaks volume that you're not being serious about improving this article. You said there was a grammatical error in the edit, so I fixed it. Now, before you hit the revert button, I wan't you to explain to me where exactly does the error lay in. Since there is literally none. And please concentrate on edit, not editors. (N0n3up (talk) 02:09, 14 April 2016 (UTC))

I am going to put up a merge notice on this article so we can have a formal consensus. After that all the arguments on here will be past history. The advice on WP:PERSONAL is to ignore personal remarks. We also have advice on WP:EDITWAR which says that editors should seek consensus rather than reverting. As a guide, if two different editors revert what you have done, it's best to discuss before continuing to try to enforce your idea. I looked at what Carlstak had written, and while it was harsh and unnecessary, and he would have done better to comment on the edit rather than the editor, it could be argued that it was an observation rather than a personal attack. Anyway, rather than have it in plain view to keep annoying you, I have archived it, and at the same time removed unnecessary personal comments so the archive history shows only the essential concern. It's a minor point, and one that is now best left alone. For either of you to continue picking at this matter will only create distress, possibly drag in and waste other editors' time, and likely lead to sanctions for someone. Let's concentrate on building the encyclopedia not on having personal fights. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:43, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Article fix

Why does the infobox look messed up all the sudden? (N0n3up (talk) 01:50, 21 April 2016 (UTC))

You need to ask that on the talkpage of the template: Template:Infobox former country. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:58, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

SilkTork Does that mean it show the same in your computer, or is mines just malfunctioning? (N0n3up (talk) 02:03, 21 April 2016 (UTC))

The fault is in Template:Infobox former country, which is the template for the infobox. It's not a fault in the article, so nobody reading this article will be able to fix it. I don't understand template code, so I can't fix it. You would need to ask on the talkpage: Template talk:Infobox former country. The fault is probably as a result of this edit. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:34, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

OK. I had a close look at the code, and worked out the problem, and that appears to have fixed it. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:51, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

SilkTork Thanks bro ;) (N0n3up (talk) 04:25, 22 April 2016 (UTC))

Sidon? Cambe?

In the middle of this page discussing the coins of ancient Syria, Head has a passage stating

On some of these coins occurs a Phoenician inscription. (or ככב) אפא כת צר לצדנם אם כמב meaning ‘belonging to [the city of] the Sidonians, the metropolis of Cambe (i. e. Carthage), of Hippo, of Citium, of Tyre’. More usual is the shorter inscription לצדנם, or ΣΙΔΩΝΙΩΝ.

Obviously, the Hebrew is just a kludge from the print age for dealing with the lack of Phoenician-alphabet dies, but any idea why Sidon is claiming to be the metropolis for Carthage? Some special cult that involved annual tributes? Delusions of grandeur?

Also, I've never heard of Carthage being called anything like "Cambe". Is it an alternate name? — LlywelynII 12:18, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Map, Corsica

The map of the Carthaginian empire in 264 BC shows Corsica as part of the realm, which it wasn't. Is it possible to correct this, or is it easier to replace with a different iamge? Furius (talk) 12:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Actually, in 264 BC, it shouldn't show them holding territory in Spain, either... Furius (talk) 12:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

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Poor writing in the last paragraph of 'Power and Organisation'

Perhaps someone knowledgeable in the field would be good enough to rewrite the following paragraph - perhaps splitting it into more than one paragraph as it seems to treat more than one topic?

It is the last paragraph under the "Power and Organisation" subheading just before "Citizenship". It seems to have been written by someone who does not have perfect mastery of English. I cite it below in full, underlining the questionable sections. In my view it is too replete with errors and irregularaities of English usage (which impede clarity quite significantly) to make it worth offering linguistic corrections. There is also a lack

"Traders of Carthage were secretive in ways to keep trade routes from the Greeks. Most conflicts from Carthage lasted from 600 BC to 500 BC with Greece and its trade routes. Greek goods were no match to Carthage goods and their goal was to export to African harbors while keeping Greek goods out. The people of Carthage spoke Punic, which had its own alphabet and would later continue through trade routes and grow into Africa. Carthage was also highly influenced by Egyptian culture. Amulets and seals coming from those of Egyptian religion were found about Carthage as well as the use of scarabs. These scarabs, in Egyptian culture, were for funerals and to expose them to the afterlife. Finding these and many pictures carved into clay, stone and other specimens was a big connection between Egypt's ties to Carthage." 2A00:23C7:1A24:5D01:5445:9568:4C23:DA14 (talk) 18:47, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Carthage

Founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century BC, Carthage reached its height in the fourth century BC. Was it Founded later and reached its height before. What's the context here did not get this one. 2405:6E00:291:E04B:19F4:31FD:5EA:32B8 (talk) 09:26, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Lead is misleading

The lead still confuses the empire and the city and switches between the two, despite all the previous discussions. It also does not explain the difference from Punic people. Rjdeadly (talk) 09:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Wording

I was reading this and I need this part changed from "Jupiter sends a spirit in the form of the messenger god, Mercury, to remind Aeneas that his mission is not to stay in Carthage with his new-found love Dido, but to sail to Italy to found Rome." to "Jupiter sends a spirit in the form of the messenger god, Mercury, to remind Aeneas that his mission is not to stay in Carthage with his new-found love Dido, but to sail to Italy to find Rome." Edit: Here's another one I found; "Ultimately, his descendants go on to found the Roman Kingdom, the predecessor of the Roman Empire."ElloGovnor123 (talk) 19:23, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Wording (October 2024)

Hello, my (reverted) additions are in orange

(1) Punic language, identity, and culture persisted in Rome for several centuries. Two Roman emperors in the third century, Septimius Severus and his son and successor Caracalla, were of Libyan Berber descent, but spoke Latin with a Punic accent. In the fourth century, Augustine of Hippo, himself of Berber heritage, noted that Punic was still spoken in the region by people who identified as Kn'nm, or "Chanani", as the Carthaginians had called themselves.

(2) However, many clues rather encourage us to follow the historian Christian Courtois when he shows that the term "Punic" was in Latin usage very often synonymous with "local", "indigenous" (from the Maghreb), as opposed to Latin/Roman and therefore actually designated Berber. The linguistic materials cited by Saint Augustine and which could provide the demonstration of one or the other thesis (Punic or Libyan language) are contradictory and do not allow a decision to be made.


(3) Some linguists such as Abdou Elimam maintain that dialectal Maghrebi Arabic derives partly from Punic, which implies that Punic was in contact with the Arabic language, which is absolutely not historically proven. Some historians have defended the thesis of a presence of Punic in the Maghreb at the time of the arrival of the Arabs in the 7th century but it is refuted by the fact that nothing allows, through the Arab sources , to perceive in North Africa another linguistic reality than Berber (and Latin in the Romanized and Christianized urban world). The Arab authors are even extremely clear on this point: the deep Maghreb, the rural and tribal Maghreb is Berber and nothing else.

@Remsense :

For the first sentence I don't really know how to rephrase?

For the second paragraph I propose: However, in the Latin language the term "Punic" would relate not to the Carthaginians, but to the "locals", or to the "native" Berbers of North Africa as opposed to the Latins and Romans. The linguistic elements provided by Saint Augustine do not allow us to decide between the two hypotheses because they are contradictory.

Third paragraph: Linguists like Abdou Elimam have argued that Maghrebi dialectal Arabic would have been derived in part from Punic. This thesis implies that the two languages ​​were in contact and that Punic was maintained until the arrival of the Arabs in the 7th century, which is not historically proven. Indeed, nothing allows, through Arab sources, to perceive in North Africa another linguistic reality than Berber (and Latin in Romanized sites). Arab authors are categorical on the nature of the deep Maghreb, Berber, rural and tribal.

Best regards. Monsieur Patillo (talk) 08:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense Did you see my message? Monsieur Patillo (talk) 18:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes! I'll reply in a few moments, apologies. Remsense ‥ 论 18:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Monsieur Patillo I think your revision is great! Feel free to re-add it. Remsense ‥ 论 20:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Monsieur Patillo (talk) 21:16, 25 October 2024 (UTC)