Who founded Carthage? Scientists conducted DNA analysis
Ruins of Punic City Kerkuan in Tunisia
Photo: Alantobey/Getty Images
For more than two thousand years, it was generally accepted that the founders of Carthage were the peoples who came from Lavanta – the Eastern Mediterranean.
However, now researchers have studied the DNA of these maritime merchants and found that they had a slight connection with the Levantian Phoenicians.
This is stated in an eight -year study whose results Posted in Nature journal, writes The New York Times.
The most powerful and most successful of the independent cities-states of the Phoenicians was Carthage, founded in about the IX century BC in the territory of modern Tunisia. Carthaginians, also known as Punic, created an empire that eventually expanded to the territory of Northeast Africa and in the south of modern Spain.
Subsequently, the state began rivalry with Rome, which led to three Punic wars, which ended in 146 BC. The confrontation ended with a cruel siege, during which the Romans destroyed Carthage, destroyed its libraries and traditionally sowed there with salt there.
The Phoenicians were the confederation of marine merchants who left the Levant – the Eastern Mediterranean and developed the most extensive trade network of antiquity. Despite their significant contribution to the construction of boats, navigation and urban planning, there are almost no written monuments left after them.
Now the international group of researchers analyzed the DNA of the remains of 210 people, most of whom have found in places traditionally considered Phoenician.
Scientists concluded that from VI to II century BC Levantian Phoenicians made only a minor genetic contribution in Punic colonies, including Carthage.
« They preserved the Phoenician culture, language, religion and their commercial lifestyle, but gave them to people biologically different origin, with which they mixed upon arrival in these regions »– explained the co -author of the work, a geneticist from Harvard University (USA) David Reich.
It turned out that The main ancestor of the Phoenicians were the Greeks. With them, the Phoenicians probably mingled on Sicily, where Greek and Phoenician colonies existed nearby.
The author of several books about Carthage and his most prominent commander Hannibal, Dexter Goyos, argued that nothing in the stories of Greek and Roman historians testifies to the stable flow of migrants from lavest after the creation of the city-state.
In his opinion, the Phoenicians continued to travel to Carthage, some even moved there with families, but probably they were no more than a tiny part of the population.
« There is no evidence of regular influx of Phoenician women who would become wives of male colonists »– the scientist believes.
The historian from Cardifa University (UK) Iv McDonald, who did not participate in the study, says that a relatively small sample of data complicates generalization.
« But the article shows us how much it is worth expanding the understanding of the ancient worlds beyond the simplified narratives about us and them, or the Romans and Carthage »– the scientist said.
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