Pantelleria - Bridgehead of Carthage and outpost of Rome. From the Punic base to the Roman town: archaeological research on the fortification and the public place

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Schäfer
• Subject Area: Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
• Term: from 2017 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 380241332

The proposal applied here on the Acropolis of the Central-Mediterranean island Pantelleria (Italy) is valid for the investigation of the Punic fortification as well as of the roman public place. Both elements are crucial for the symbolic representation of a community: while fortifications are directed in its semantics outwardly, public places work above all inwards. For an exemplary analysis of both complexes and their urbanistic transformation processes the choice of the site is optimal: the preservation of the settlement is excellent, stratigraphic dates of the find-contexts allow a valuable chronological evidence. This witness indicates a high impact for a new sight on the formative incidents of the 2nd half of the 1th millennium B.C. in the central Mediterranean to be approved by the applied project: The probable earliest construction phase of the fortifications from the late 4. cent. to early 3. cent. B.C. could be related to the military conflicts between Carthage and Agathocletian Syracuse (311-306 B. C. ) or to the campaign of Pyrrhos of Epirus against the towns of the Carthaginian epicracy on Sicily (278-275 B.C. ). Other construction phases can apparently be associated with the Punic wars of the 3. and 2. cent. B.C. or with the increase of piracy in the central Mediterranean area after the destruction of Carthage (in 146 B.C. ) as well as with the fortification mentioned by Appian under Sex. Pompeius in the 30s B.C. Between both Punic fortified hills the Roman place lies in a gully. Its early arrangement refers to a specific form of integration in the Roman ruling area in the triangle of Punic identity, insular locality and new political reality.On the whole it will be possible to reconstruct history and urban planning, integrated primarily in the conflicts with the Greek rulers of Sicily and afterwards into struggle with Rome. From the end of 3. cent. B.C. Pantelleria developed from an important bridgehead of Carthage to a Roman controlled outpost and at the latest under Augustus to a Roman municipium without denying local traditions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Johannes Lipps; Dr. Frerich Schön