Bringing Carthage Home: the Excavations of Nathan Davis, 1856-1859

by J. Freed

Overview

by Joann Freed
^DAdorning the north-west staircase in the British Museum is a group of brightly coloured figured mosaic pavements. Most were excavated for the Museum between 1856 and 1859 at Carthage, in what is now Tunisia, by a dilettante called Nathan Davis; the work was funded by the Foreign Office of the British Government. This book recounts for the first time the extraordinary story behind this pioneering enterprise, and the political and cultural rivalry between representatives of the colonial powers as they asserted their rights to explore the buried remains of one of the ancient world's greatest cities. The account is based on unpublished documentary material as well as what can be gleaned from published sources, including Davis' own discursive and chaotic account of his work, Carthage and her Remains (1861) - a book published exactly 150 years ago this year. Bringing Carthage Home places Davis's discoveries both in their wider archaeological context and in their topographical setting, locating for the first time on the ground the places where Davis sunk his trenches. The result is an important and original contribution to our knowledge of the history of archaeology, the topography of Carthage, the study of North African mosaics and the story of social and political intrigue in mid-nineteenth-century Tunisia.

Joann Freed is Professor Emerita in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo (Ontario), Canada, where she taught between 1989 and her retirement in 2009. Apart from the early archaeology of Carthage, her main research interests concern Roman pottery and amphorae and the evidence they provide for economics and trade in the ancient Mediterranean. The author of many papers on these subjects in books, conference proceedings and academic journals, she has also co-written (with A. M. McCann), Deep Water Archaeology: a Late Roman Ship from Carthage and an Ancient Roman Trade Route near Skerki Bank off Northwest Sicily (1994), and (with S. Stevens and M. Garrison), A Cemetery of Vandalic Date at Carthage (2009).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781842179925
Publisher:	Oxbow Books
Publication date:	12/31/2011
Series:	University of British Columbia Studies in the Ancient World Series , #2
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

1. Nathan Davis at Carthage

2. Davis in his social context

3. Davis becomes an archaeologist

4. The site of Carthage

5. Davis gets to work

6. Mosaics discovered at Carthage before Davis’ excavations

7. The late Roman Mosaic of the Months and Seasons

8. Excavations on other sites in the Spring of 1857

9. Punic votive stelae

10. Excavation at Carthage in the second half of 1857

11. Davis moves outside Roman Carthage

12. Davis’ late mosaic finds

13. Davis in competition with Beulé

14. The contribution of the pioneer archaeologists at Carthage

Appendix 1: Some observations on Davis’ mosaic finds

Appendix 2: Gauckler’s errors on the provenances of

Davis’ mosaics

Appendix 3: The mortar of Davis’ mosaics

Editorial Reviews

...her monograph represents a valuable exercise in archival archaeology, a strong complement to Gutron’s Franco-centric account of archaeology in Tunisia, an important contribution to the topography of Roman Carthage, and a solid model for future studies seeking to re-contextualize a range of materials from the Maghreb.'

Bryn Mawr Classical Review - Matthew M. McCarty

What emerges from the book is a portrait of Davis as an energetic and resourceful adventurer struggling to establish his reputation as an archaeologist in a climate of unremitting hostility from the French colonial establishment who regarded Carthage as their own exclusive sphere of influence. In the end,Davis’ career as an archaeologist was short-lived.His funding lasted only four years during which time his prolific activity in the field was never matched by a corresponding scholarly rigour, a failing which left him vulnerable to criticism by other professional archaeologists. While it may be easy to dismissDavis’ archaeological activity at Carthage as mere treasure hunting, this new reappraisal of his excavations and discoveries does much to restore his reputation as a worthy pioneer of North African archaeology. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the early exploration of ancient Carthage.'

Antiquity, volume 86, issue 332 - Jeremy Rossiter