Taparura was an ancient

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–19 ...

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...

and

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 lett ...

city in the location of modern-day

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 ...

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

. It was a former

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

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 associ ...

. The same ancient name was revived in the 1980s as a coastal urban development project on the location of former chemical industries.

Etymology

The Latin name ''Taparura'' originates in the Greek which means 'the fortified' place or settlement. It is uncertain whether the Greek name was given after a Greek settlement or by Phoenicians as part of their commercial and military settlements during the 4th century B.C. The same Greek meaning was translated into

in the

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 ...

era in ''

Ksar Ksar or qsar (Maghrebi Arabic: wiktionary:قصر, قصر ''qṣer'' or ڭصر ''gser'', plural ''qṣur''; Berber language, Berber: ⵉⴴⵔⵎ ''aghrem'' or ''ighrem'', plural: ''igherman''), plural ksars, qsars, ksour or qsour, is the Nor ...

S-Fa-Ekez'' which gives the current name of the city Sfax.

The ancient city

Taparura was originally a ''

civitas In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (; plural ), according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the , or citizens, united by law (). It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities () on th ...

'' (town), within

Byzacena Byzacena (or Byzacium) ( grc, Βυζάκιον, ''Byzakion'') was a Late Roman province in the central part of Roman North Africa, which is now roughly Tunisia, split off from Africa Proconsularis. History At the end of the 3rd century AD, t ...

during the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

. The town was also an ancient Christian

bishopric 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 associate ...

, whose

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair, a chair ...

was resident in that Roman town. Only one

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

of Taparura is known, Limeniano, who attended the

Council of Carthage (411) The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, assembled under the presidency of Cyprian ...

. The ancient bishopric survives today, as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

s have uncovered a

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

and

baptistry In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptisma ...

The urban coastal development project

Taparura is today the name given to a new urban development area of the city. It covers 420 hectares of newly filled land over the phosphogypsum stack of a former Swedish-Tunisian NPK fertilizer

joint-venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

. In 1985 a new development proposal was formulated that would see additional land taken from the Mediterranean and integrated as an urban park, a beach of three kilometers, as well as residential, commercial and tertiary zones. The first works for its revitalization began in 2006 and consisted of

environmental remediation Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water. Remedial action is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and may al ...

and filling. The "Sfax Northern Coast Planning and Development Company" (nicknamed "The Taparura Company") is the central-state-owned company in charge of the project, with little legal binding to the local institutions of Sfax. Since 2008 after the end of the land reclamation works, the company remained idle with no significant progress in terms of planning and development. The central decision-making process is thought to be the main constraint to the implementation of the project according to local activists.

References

{{reflist, 2 Sfax Catholic titular sees in Africa Roman towns and cities in Africa (Roman province)

Etymology

The ancient city

The urban coastal development project

See also

References