North Africa is wedged between the seemingly endless Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea. The fertile Nile was once the reason that a civilisation emerged in Egypt more than 8,000 years ago that is still looked at with admiration. Large parts of northern Africa belonged to (the sphere of influence of) Egypt. Around the year 2000 BC, the Greeks became the vanguard of European civilisation. They called the northern part of the continent Libya, derived from Libus, but that was only a 'translation' of the Egyptian Libu , the name of several tribes that roamed there.
But the Greeks were not the only ones who wanted to discover new coasts. The Phoenicians did the same from around 1500 BC. They inhabited parts of what is now Lebanon and became renowned navigators and traders. They founded trading cities on the coasts of North Africa and as far as the Iberian Peninsula. In 814 BC they founded a new, strategically located city in what is now Tunisia. The Phoenicians called it Qart Hadasht – ‘the new city’ in their own language, which eventually became corrupted to Carthage.
The legendary founder and first queen of the city was Dido, also known as Elyssa.
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[Ancient Carthage] |
The Phoenicians were also the ones who introduced olive trees to the area around the same time. Carthage grew to be the most influential and powerful colony of the Phoenicians and had approximately 500,000 inhabitants at its peak. This expansion naturally caused Carthage to conflict with many of its neighbors, such as the indigenous Berbers and various Greek city-states, including Syracuse in Sicily.
In the year 146 BC, the city was conquered by the Romans and razed to the ground. The entire area that is now Tunisia became part of the Imperium Romanum , the Roman Empire. In order to populate and protect the new colony, Rome sent colonists and soldiers to the area. It is not known exactly what happened to the original inhabitants, but they did not have many options: they were either banished or they were absorbed into the great Roman Empire. A bit like the Borg from the film series Star Trek: You will be assimilated . You became Roman. Whether you wanted to or not.
But although the main city had disappeared, Tunisia became an important trading partner for the Roman Empire. The cultivation of olives also grew rapidly, partly thanks to the irrigation techniques that the Romans had brought with them. Excavations in the Tunisian soil brought to light several beautiful mosaics depicting olive trees, clear evidence of how important the cultivation was in that period.
A beautiful example is the third-century mosaic found in Thysdrus, today's El Jem. It shows an owl watching disinterestedly as birds fall from the sky. The scene is flanked by two olive trees. Above it is written: 'Invidia rumpuntur aves, neque noctua curat' . Translated, this means: 'The birds are bursting with jealousy, the owl doesn't care, he is above it.' It was a Roman proverb, in which the owl represented the Roman elite and the birds the jealous outside world.
The Romans have been swallowed up in the annals of history, but not much has changed since Roman rule, because Tunisia is still one of the world's largest producers of high-quality extra virgin olive oil. The Tunisians are rightly proud of their olive oil and the long history associated with it.
