Urban transformation in the Central Medjerda Valley (north-west Tunisia) in late antiquity and the middle ages: a regional approach

Abstract

Recent scholarship on North African cities has done much to dispel earlier assumptions about late antique collapse and demonstrate significant continuity into the Byzantine and medieval periods. Yet urban changes did not affect North Africa evenly. Far less is known about the differing regional trajectories that shaped urban transformation and the extent to which pre-Roman and Roman micro-regions continued to share meaningful characteristics in subsequent periods. This article provides a preliminary exploration of regional change from the fourth to the eleventh century focused on a zone in the Central Medjerda Valley (Tunisia) containing the well-known sites of Bulla Regia and Chimtou. We place these towns in their wider historical and geographical setting and interrogate urban change by looking at investment in public buildings and spaces, religious buildings and housing, and ceramic networks. The process of comparison identifies new commonalities (and differences) between the sites of this stretch of the Medjerda River and provides a framework for understanding the many transformations of North African cities over the long late antiquity.

Isotopic evidence for human mobility in late antique Bulla Regia (Tunisia)

“…Bulla Regia was a wealthy town, renowned for its 4th–5th c. CE underground houses with floor mosaics ( Fenwick et al, 2022 , Thébert, 1973 ). To study the development and transformation of Bulla Regia during the transition from Late Antiquity to Middle Ages, the Tunisian–British Bulla Regia Project, a collaboration between the Institut National du Patrimoine (INP) and University College London (UCL), was established in 2014.…”

“…Reasons for this would have varied but may have included infants born on estates or while their father was serving appointment elsewhere ( Thébert, 1973 ). Our understanding of late antique Bulla Regia is less certain, though it remained a wealthy and well-connected town, as attested by the presence of several bishops who attended the conferences in Carthage ( Fenwick et al, 2022 ).…”

The technology of polychrome glazed ceramics in Ifriqiya: new data from the site of Chimtou

“…Medieval activity has been identified by archaeologists since the late 1890s and it seems there was a sizeable settlement here in the ninth-twelfth centuries, though significantly smaller than the Roman city (Fig. 1 , Fenwick et al 2022 ; von Rummel and Möller 2019 ).

Fig.

…”

“…Nevertheless, the repertoire gives a first impression of the household inventory of medieval houses in Chimtou. Glazed ware is poorly represented, and the assemblage consists mainly of plain wares, which include handmade kitchen ware such as so-called Maâjnas and jars as well as wheel-thrown bowls and filter jugs (Fenwick et al 2022 ; von Rummel and Möller 2019 ). While the handmade and wheel-thrown cookware was produced locally or in the immediate region and there are very few intra-regional imported wares, the limited glazed ware does suggest trade with central or north-eastern Tunisia.…”

Bulla Regia II: Excavations in the Christian cemetery

“…The fabric of the Painted Ware is similar to the presumed local common ware productions, but further archaeometric analyses are necessary to understand the production and distribution of this important group of pottery (cf. Fenwick et al 2022). A local or regional production of fine ware is also possible.…”