The Carthage Treasure is a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

silver hoard, which was found in

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

, Tunisia, at the site of the ancient city of

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the cla ...

. The treasure principally consists of silver tableware and jewellery, most of which is now held at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

.British Museum Collection
British Museum, retrieved April 2014

Discovery

The hoard was unearthed in the 19th century at the Hill of St Louis in Carthage, which at the time of its deposition was the largest city of Africa Proconsulare. Most of the treasure was purchased by Sir

Augustus Wollaston Franks Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (20 March 182621 May 1897) was a British antiquarian and museum administrator. Franks was described by Marjorie Caygill, historian of the British Museum, as "arguably the most important collector in the history of ...

, a senior curator at the British Museum, who bequeathed it to the museum upon his death in 1897. A small part of the treasure can be found in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, including one of the silver covered bowls.Louvre Collection
Louvre Collection, retrieved April 2014

Dating and attribution

Dating to the second half of the fourth century AD, the Carthage Treasure comprises 31 different objects, primarily luxury silver tableware and jewellery that must have belonged to a wealthy Roman family who for some reason decided to bury it for safe-keeping. This may have been because of the religious feud around 400, but it is more likely that the treasure was hidden from the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

. The Vandals, led by

Gaiseric Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric ( la, Gaisericus, Geisericus; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the diff ...

, invaded Africa Proconsulare from Spain in 429 and in the Battle of Carthage (439) the city became capital of the Vandal Kingdom. Inscribed in the centre of one of the dishes around the tondo is D D ICRESCONI CLARENT, which is associated with the Cresconii, a powerful Roman North African family in CarthageBowl from the Carthage Treasure
Highlights, British Museum, retrieved 3 April 2014 who are well known from deeds and records of office-holders at this time.

Description

The treasure includes a pair of flat dishes (one of which identifies the family), two bowls with chased and hammered pastoral scenes in relief around the edge, four hemispherical

bowl A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom forming a seamless curve. This makes ...

s with high tapering feet (two of which still have their covers), a shallow bowl with handle and frog engraved in the centre, twelve silver spoons, and a mixed collection of jewellery: a finger ring, a cameo, a pair of ear rings, several intaglios and two necklaces, one made of gold, the other with precious stones. The jewelled necklace consists of twelve polygonal emeralds, thirteen sapphires, matched by twenty-five pearls all joined by gold links.''Catalogue of early Christian antiquities and objects from the Christian East in the Department of British and mediaeval antiquities and ethnography of the British museum''
O. M. Dalton, 1901 The family would have owned two collections of silver: One known as ''argentum potorium'' that was the drinking set, and another for eating called the ''argentum escarium''. Amongst this find were several silver hemispherical lidded bowls that measure 12 cm high and 12 cm in diameter. The vessels' elegant design includes a tall base that complements the knop of the bowl's lid. The bowls also incorporate subtle

facet Facets () are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure. Gemstones commonly have facets cut ...

s on the lids' curved surfaces. Similar bowls have been found at the Roman site of

Viminacium Viminacium () or ''Viminatium'', was a major city (provincial capital) and military camp of the Roman province of Moesia (today's Serbia), and the capital of ''Moesia Superior'' (hence once a metropolitan archbishopric, now a Latin titular see). ...

near modern

Kostolac The City municipality of Kostolac ( sr-cyrl, Градска општина Костолац, Gradska opština Kostolac is a town in Serbia and one of two city municipalities which constitute the City of Požarevac. It is situated on the Danube ri ...

in Serbia.Silver bowl from the Carthage Treasure
British Museum, retrieved 10 January 2016

Gallery

Image:Carthage (3).JPG, One of the necklaces (made of

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

s and

sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sa ...

s) next to the pair of ear rings Image:Carthage (4).JPG, A silver spoon with an apocalyptic Chrismon engraved in the centre Image:Carthage (5).JPG, A flat bowl with

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

inscription around the centre Image:Carthage (6).JPG, Two elaborately decorated bowls with pastoral and

bacchic In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Roma ...

scenes Image:Carthage (7).JPG, Shallow bowl above three silver spoons Image:Carthage (1).JPG, One of the hemispherical covered bowls

References

Bibliography