The Enigma of the Great Thapsus Harbour Mole

Abstract

On the East coast of Tunisia, between Sousse and Sfax, lie the scant remains of the ancient city of Thapsus, notable mainly for a battle fought in the civil war in 46 BC. Visits by the authors resulted in the discovery of one of the longest‐known harbour moles in the entire Roman Empire. No ancient sources make reference to any work of such magnitude and the paper suggests that the harbour was never completed, but might have been started by the local emperors Gordianus, none of whom survived long enough to have executed such a project.

Meghalayan environmental evolution of the Thapsus coast (Tunisia) as inferred from sedimentological and micropaleontological proxies

“…Thapsus was established around Rass Dimass, a cape extending into the sea providing natural shelter for vessels and enabling safe anchorage for loading and discharge of cargo. When the Phoenicians fought against the Romans in the Punic Wars, Thapsus sided with Roman emperors (Gordianus I, II, II) and was fortified with an enormous harbor infrastructure, an amphitheater, and a huge breakwater mole (Davidson and Yorke, 2014). The massive concrete and stone breakwater structure extended almost 1 km into the sea (Fig.…”

“…The shallow lagoon served as a natural harbor during antiquity (Fig. 1e; Davidson and Yorke, 2014) and was illustrated in Andrea Palladio's 16th century treatise of the Battle of Thapsus (Fig. 1f; Giocondo and Palladio, 1567).…”