Tharros, the Coastal Cities of Punic Sardinia and the Carthaginian Geopolitics from the 5th to the 3rd Century BCE

During the 5th and 4th century BCE the Punic city of Tharros lives a phase of economic prosperity and cultural ferment. Its port is of primary importance along the routes to and from North Africa, the Balearics and the Eastern Mediterranean. The remarkable evidence for scarab seals, especially in jasper, testifies also to the town’s strong administrative organization of Carthaginian origin. The variety of technical stylistic solutions highlighted in the field of the scarab seals has fed, in the past, the hypothesis of a participation of Etruscan-Ionian craftsmen in the local manufacture. Other types of material culture found mainly in funerary contexts have been traced back to the heritage of the Nuragic tradition, which is given an important role in the processes of hybridization that led to a mixed Sardinian-Punic society: on the real historical consistency of these phenomena, however, we expect confirmation. Recent researches in genetics of ancient DNA refer instead to North African components as playing a significant role in the Tharrensis society of the 5th century BCE. The problem of the Tharros’ community identity is still to be delineated,as well as the relationships between the “Carthage of Sardinia” and the other coastal cities between the Middle and Late Punic periods. For this phase it would be not anomalous, in fact, to recognize a pivotal role of Tharros in the project of reorganization of the territorial control over Sardinia that Carthage implements through different strategies: from the transfer of African workforce to the island, to the elaboration of new religious beliefs and cultic figures functional to promoting social and ethnic cohesion.