Ounga, also known as Younga and Jounga, is an archaeological site on the

Mediterranean coast The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the eas ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

, located south of

Sfax Sfax (; ar, صفاقس, Ṣafāqis ) is a city in Tunisia, located southeast of Tunis. The city, founded in AD849 on the ruins of Berber Taparura, is the capital of the Sfax Governorate (about 955,421 inhabitants in 2014), and a Mediterrane ...

along the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

coast. The area is also known for its oil fields.

History

Ounga was a Phoenician and Carthaginian

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state' ...

under the name ( xpu, 𐤌𐤒𐤌𐤇𐤃𐤔, , "New Place"). The coastal town was the intersection of the road from

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 ...

to Tacape and the road branching off to Sufetula. After the Punic Wars, the area fell under

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 ...

control. The name was latinized to Macomades. It was variously distinguished from the

Macomades Macomades was a Carthaginian and Roman city in North Africa. It was located near present-day Oum-El-Bouaghi, Algeria History Macomades was established as an inland Punic trading post under the name ( xpu, 𐤌𐤒𐤌𐤀, "Place"). It was ...

in present-day Algeria as ("Lesser Macomades") during the early empire and as , Iunca, Lunci, or Lunca under the later empire.Iunca in Byzacena
at GCatholic.org The name of the city changed in the 4th century. In ancient times, Ounga was the site of Christian activity that produced various religious buildings. Accordingly, it maintained relations with other cities such as

. Historians, such as

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

n archaeologist Zainab Benzina, state that a representative of the city of Younga, the bishop Valentinianus, attended the Council of Carthage (412). In addition, the city hosted a provincial council in 524. Remains of the Roman town include three

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...

s, city

rampart Rampart may refer to: * Rampart (fortification), a defensive wall or bank around a castle, fort or settlement Rampart may also refer to: * "O'er the Ramparts We Watched" is a key line from "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the ...

s, a

citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. I ...

, a vaulted cistern and crypts. Some of the remains show Coptic influence. The citadel was identified in 1944 by French archaeologist

Louis Poinsot Louis Poinsot (3 January 1777 – 5 December 1859) was a French mathematician and physicist. Poinsot was the inventor of geometrical mechanics, showing how a system of forces acting on a rigid body could be resolved into a single force and a c ...

as the place described by

Arab geographer Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age (variously dated between the 8th century and 16th century). Muslim scholars made advances to the map-maki ...

Al Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī ( ar, أبو عبيد عبد الله بن عبد العزيز بن محمد بن أيوب بن عمرو البكري), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1 ...

and Al-Idrissi under the name of Kasr er-Roum (Castle of the Romans). It was transformed in the 9th century by the

Aghlabids The Aghlabids ( ar, الأغالبة) were an Arab dynasty of emirs from the Najdi tribe of Banu Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya and parts of Southern Italy, Sicily, and possibly Sardinia, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a c ...

, who modified the upper part of the walls. Poinssot identifies Younga as the new name of the city of Macomades Minores, also called Macomades Lunci or Lunca. The discovery in 1936 of a fragment of a

milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

from the mid-3rd century close to Younga definitively confirmed the relationship.

Bishopric

Ounga was the seat of an ancient

Latin Catholic , native_name_lang = la , image = San Giovanni in Laterano - Rome.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , alt = Façade of the Archbasilica of St. John in Lateran , caption = Archbasilica of Saint Joh ...

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

, about which little is known. A synod took place on the site after the

Muslim conquest of the Maghreb The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb ( ar, الْفَتْحُ الإسلَامِيُّ لِلْمَغرِب) continued the century of rapid Muslim conquests following the death of Muhammad in 632 and into the Byzantine-controlled territories of ...

Jonathan Conant, ''Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean 439-700'' (Cambridge University Press, 2012) p100 and another in 523 AD. A Christian

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

was founded in the town around 500 AD. Two bishops are known: * Verecundus of Iunca *Valentinianus, who attended the Council of Carthage (412), as above The bishopric survives today as a

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox ...

ric, which has been vacant since the departure of the last bishop,

Marcel Roger Buyse Marcel Roger Buyse (born 1892 in Izegem) was a Belgian clergyman and prelate for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lahore The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Lahore is a Latin Metropolitan Archdiocese in Punjab province, Pakistan. ...

, in 2008.

Fortress

Bordj Younga The remains of the

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

known as Bordj Younga are noted for their excellent condition.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . * . {{Phoenician cities and colonies, state=collapsed Populated places in Tunisia Archaeology of Tunisia Catholic titular sees in Africa Phoenician colonies in Tunisia