A geoarchaeological study identifies that the mud bricks were manufactured 7–8 km from the site, demonstrating detailed knowledge of the territory and a centralized political organization under Barcid rule.The headline is a little confusing. It's point is that the North African city Carthage organized the construction of the city wall of its namesake, Carthage or New Carthage, it's chief colonial city in Spain. That is the modern city of Cartagena, about which you have already heard a great deal from me.
The underlying open-access article, cited at the end of the LBV piece, is Cutillas-Victoria B, Ramallo Asensio SF, Martín Camino M. "Landscape exploitation and middle-distance supply of mudbricks for the Carthaginian rampart of Qart Hadasht (Spain)." Antiquity. Published online 2026:1-19. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.10276.
AbstractFor PaleoJudaica posts on Cartagena, its Annual Festival of the Carthaginians and Romans, and its history and archaeology, see the links collected here. For a very quick history review, see here. And for more on that Punic-era city wall (which in the end did not save the city) and other Punic archaeological remains, see here.Founded in 228/227 BCE, the Carthaginian city of Qart Hadasht in southern Spain became the principal Punic political centre and military port in the western Mediterranean. Its defensive architecture featured a robust casemate wall composed of an outer sandstone face and inner mudbrick walls. Here, the authors present the geoarchaeological analysis of the earthen materials used in the construction of this wall. The results reveal differences in composition and provenance between mudbricks and mud mortars, with the former sourced across distances of 7–8km, highlighting the detailed knowledge of hinterland resources and complex political organisation involved in the wall’s construction.
Cross-file under Ancient Fortification.
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