Sophie Bessis, freelance journalist
Tunis
An upmarket residential area around the port of Phoenician Carthage.
After independence in 1956, urban expansion accelerated dramatically. The population increased, and a new middle class sharpened its appetitefor land and property. Concrete spread like a lava flow
Despite
30 years of protection, the site of the great city of Antiquity is still being eroded
by urban pressures. A major conservation project now in the works should pave the
way for new excavations
Imagine an urban area whose population has increased from 300,000 to nearly
two million in 40 years. It sprawls out in every direction and its growth seems unstoppable.
This is the case of Tunis, which has even started filling in some of the salt lakes
on its periphery and building modern neighbourhoods on the reclaimed land.
As you go north of the capital, past the big port of La Goulette and the old suburb
of Kram, you suddenly come upon a vast expanse of meadowland, green in winter and
yellow in summer, that is dotted with the remains of walls, heaps of stones and the
stumps of still-gleaming marble columns. These are the outskirts of Carthage, in
Antiquity the prosperous capital of the Roman province of Africa.
Towards the sea, the landscape is again dominated by buildings, forming an immense
garden city interspersed with the splendid ruins of the ancient city. Its suburbs
stretch further north as far as ancient Megara, overlooked from a height by the village
of Sidi Bou Saïd, whose white domes have for centuries stood out between the
sea and the sky.
Unexcavated
remains
Carthage, a city both
mythical and real, was founded in the 9th century B.C. by the legendary Queen Dido
(also known as Elissa), who hailed from Phoenicia. It became the Mediterranean’s
most formidable maritime trading power until the rise of the Roman Empire, which
destroyed it in 146 B.C. Its fortunes then revived under the Romans. Only ruins are
left of the Phoenician city, but the remains of Roman and Byzantine Carthage are
more abundant and give a good idea of what one of the biggest cities of ancient times
was like. But a large part of the old city is still buried and, if steps are not
taken, may stay hidden forever.
To get an idea of the threats that hang over ancient Carthage, you have to climb
atop the hill of Byrsa, which was the site of a Phoenician fortress and then the
Roman forum. Today the hill is occupied by the St Louis basilica, which was built
in early colonial times, and the former archbishop’s palace, now a museum. From here,
you can see over the entire plain of Tunis. Nearly all the narrow coastal strip between
the lake and the sea is built up. Teeming slums fill the southern end of the strip.
Further north, between Carthage and the seaside resort of Marsa, are chic residential
suburbs where every rich or politically powerful Tunisian dreams of living.
Carthage, which was supplanted by Tunis more than a thousand years ago, seems to
have become once more a symbolic place of power since Habib Bourguiba, independent
Tunisia’s first president, established the presidential palace there. The urban pressure
seems inexorable, whether from the poorer areas or from the zone of luxurious villas
which look on to them. Tunis has no more room to expand and is greedily eyeing a
500-hectare area which has been set aside as a future archaeological park. The site
of Carthage has been protected for the past 30 years, and new building has been virtually
halted. Urbanization began at the end of the last century, with the construction
of the railway from Tunis to La Goulette and Marsa. Under the French protectorate,
villas and housing estates began encroaching on the area. After independence in 1956,
this creeping expansion accelerated dramatically. The city grew in size because of
population growth and an exodus from rural areas. A new government-fostered middle
class sharpened appetites for land and property speculation. Concrete spread like
a lava flow.
A rescue
operation
In the early 1970s,
awareness began to spread, both in Tunisia and abroad, that the remains of Carthage
were in danger of disappearing forever. On May 19, 1972, UNESCO Director-General René Maheu
launched an international campaign to save the site, which was put on UNESCO’s
World Heritage List in 1979. Rescue operations soon began. As a dozen teams of archaeologists
from several countries got to work, the Tunisian government took steps which led
in 1985 to the declaration of a 600-hectare zone of Carthage and Sidi Bou Saïd
as a protected area where new construction was mostly banned.
Heritage campaigners breathed a sigh of relief. But if the worst has been avoided
over the past 15 years, threats still loom. The fight to save Carthage has been conducted
at various levels. It aims to halt the spread of poor housing as well as to curb
the appetite of the wealthy who are determined to put up buildings and of businessmen
who want to promote housing development in a zone where land values are the highest
in the country. There is little sympathy for the moratorium on such development.
Why, people ask, should a building project, which is either necessary or profitable,
be banned just to preserve past history which only interests an educated minority
of Tunisians?
Over the years, six orders have cut back the area of the future archaeological park
planned in 1985. Two zones were reclassified as part of the urban area and were quickly
built on, while luxury villas have sprouted around the famous Phoenician ports. Some
land has been given to the Polytechnic Institute to expand its campus. Squatting
by poor people in the Ellil district on the edge of Carthage has also been allowed.
These encroachments on the protected zone are worrying but not alarming, according
to one expert, and so far the core of the site has been preserved. But the pressures
are so strong today that tougher laws are now needed as well as the creation of the
long-awaited Carthage-Sidi Bou Saïd archaeological park, whose physical existence
would finally put an end to such pressures.
Things are moving along slowly. Since 1991, a cabinet committee chaired by President
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has overseen the Carthage project, for which the president
has always expressed strong support. Officials are working on a preservation and
development plan for the park which is expected to be much more detailed and restrictive
than the 1985 preservation order. It will authorize public expropriation of any part
of the site, enabling the government to buy the land, most of it still privately-owned.
It will ban division of plots of land and the building of housing estates and, with
the 1994 Heritage Code, will complete the country’s set of preservation laws.
UNESCO dispatched a team of experts to Tunis in March
1999 to take a look at the plan. They reported that it was “useful and coherent”,
though it “risked setting off conflicts, mainly with landowners . . . but also for
other reasons, including financial ones.” The state, they said, “should make a substantial
investment to gain control of the land by buying it.”
So all the obstacles have not yet been overcome, but if the determination of the
politicians holds, the preservation plan should come into effect before the year
2000. To mark the occasion and also launch a new series of excavations, the Tunisian
authorities want to stage an international conference on Carthage in January 2000.
By making the establishment of the park irreversible, Tunisia will be the only Mediterranean
country to have protected 600 hectares of land in the centre of its biggest urban
area. Tunis will be the only Mediterranean city with a park of such size and with
such a rich history. For the past 30 years, friends and admirers of Carthage have
been fighting to make this great dream come true. So far the battle has not been
lost—but it has yet to be won.
