Studies on the early urban history of Meninx

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Ritter
• Subject Area: Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 502479918

Meninx was the eponymous capital on the island of Djerba in Antiquity, and famous as one of the most important production centres of purple in the Mediterranean. The port city was founded in the 4th century BC and developed into one of the largest metropolises in Roman North Africa. The city first came to light archaeologically in the course of recent research, which provided information about the urban structure and the port facilities as well as first insights into the city's history.Based on these preliminary investigations, the project aims to answer fundamental open questions about the early urban development of Meninx through targeted excavations. The focus is on the centuries from the 4th century BC to the comprehensive reorganisation of the city that began in the Flavian-Trajan period. Meninx is of exemplary interest for the knowledge of the generally still little researched pre- and early Roman phases of ancient cities in North Africa and is also particularly suitable, as the early features are well accessible here and over a larger area.The excavations will be carried out in three parts of the city. Of particular interest is the area around the forum, under which the oldest settlement core lies. In this area, several excavation areas will be used to investigate the pre- and early imperial settlement features as well as the growing peripheral buildings of the square. In the north-eastern quarter around the theatre, which was developed from the Augustan period onwards, the presumed Isis sanctuary, a representative residential building, and a possible second public square will be explored. Finally, the history of the workshop quarter on the north-western periphery is to be examined to gain information on when this area was developed and whether, as can be assumed, the workshops for the production of purple were concentrated here. These investigations are expected to shed light on how one should imagine the settlement in the foundation phase, how the city expanded in the following centuries, and which areas it encompassed when it received its final structure, tangible in the magnetometer image, from the late 1st century AD onwards.The expected large variety of find material will first and foremost provide detailed insights into the everyday and economic life of Meninx and changes in living conditions in the course of the city's long history. In the regional reference system of Tripolitania, important further results are expected on the close-meshed micro-regional network which, in addition to Djerba, also included settlements on the opposite mainland. In the broader Mediterranean context, the import finds will provide more precise insights into the city's overseas long-distance trade relations, and it is hoped that they will also provide information on the extent to which the Meninx trading hub was integrated into the lively trans-Saharan trade of the Tripolitan coastal cities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants