- chapter 17: Etruria Marittima –
Farther west, the materials from Utica and Tipasa have yet to be verifi ed.^52 It is once again
necessary to mention the two Etruscan inscriptions dating to the Republican period:
one is upon a bronze disc, a kind of tessera hospitalis, from Gouraya (Gunugu) some 150
kilometers west of Algiers.^53 The other appears upon a set of three boundary stones
that repeat a legal proclamation, collected in the valley of Miliane, to the south-west
of Carthage.^54 Thus, the rich concentration of Etruscan discoveries at Carthage confi rms
that the Punic capital was a privileged port in regards to Etruscan relations with North
Africa and maritime trade in the southern Mediterranean, constituting the major east-
west axis of the so-called “Phoenician corridor.”^55
The archaeological dossier of Etrusco-Punic relations emerged in the nineteenth
century ad upon the fi rst discovery at Carthage of Etruscan objects, associated with objects
identical in style to the Orientalizing works found at Carthage and in wealthy Etruscan
tombs, such as faience fl asks for unguents and perfumes.^56 Today, Etruscan banquet ware,
in ceramics as well as bronze, and perfume vessels (Fig. 17.11) are well known through
over 100 examples associated with some 30 different types. These discoveries primarily
derive from tombs close to the summit of the hill of Byrsa (Saint-Louis) and out to
the sectors of Sainte Monique and Bordj-Djedid, although without further particulars
concerning the exact distribution.^57
The bronze vessels from the funerary goods in Carthage consist of several oinochoai
of types either common or very close to Etruscan styles. Certain groups appear to be
local productions, while others show close affi nities with Campanian products, or those
of Magna Graecia; some are clearly Etruscan. We recognize four primary categories: the
Rhodian type, decorated with Orientalizing and Egyptianizing motifs (palmettes, uraeus,
Hathor masks); the type with anthropomorphic handles; the type with handles raised
and decorated or not with a mask at the lower attachment; and fi nally the most famous
Etruscan form, an oinochoe with cylindrical body and long spout – the Schnabelkanne –
the most common form of export. Amongst the examples of the Rhodian type, other than
the famous gilded bronze from the Byrsa, we know of two from Ard el-Mourali and two
others from Ard el-Kheraïb, which appear to be of Carthaginian manufacture and which
date to somewhere between the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the
sixth.^58 The oinochoai with fi gured handles and those with simple raised handles would be
Figure 17.11 Carthage, old excavations of necropoleis, small amphora of bucchero sottile with registers
of incised horizontal lines, Musée du Louvre. End of the seventh century (drawing G.-A.).