The Punic Mediterranean
Identities and Identification from Phoenician Settlement to Roman Rule

A revisionist exploration of identities and interactions in the 'Punic World' of the western Mediterranean.

Josephine Crawley Quinn (Edited by), Nicholas C. Vella (Edited by)

9781107055278, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 December 2014

414 pages, 75 b/w illus. 24 colour illus. 22 maps 4 tables
24.4 x 17 x 2.4 cm, 0.98 kg

'… the work coordinated by Quinn and Vella contributes brilliantly to the deconstruction and reformulation of 'Punic' (and 'Phoenician') identities through concepts - heterogeneity, connectivity, fluidity, negotiation, local agency and hybridism.' Manuel Álvarez Martí-Aguilar, Antiquity

The role of the Phoenicians in the economy, culture and politics of the ancient Mediterranean was as large as that of the Greeks and Romans, and deeply interconnected with that 'classical' world, but their lack of literature and their oriental associations mean that they are much less well-known. This book brings state-of-the-art international scholarship on Phoenician and Punic studies to an English-speaking audience, collecting new papers from fifteen leading voices in the field from Europe and North Africa, with a bias towards the younger generation. Focusing on a series of case-studies from the colonial world of the western Mediterranean, it asks what 'Phoenician' and 'Punic' actually mean, how Punic or western Phoenician identity has been constructed by ancients and moderns, and whether there was in fact a 'Punic world'.

Introduction Josephine Crawley Quinn and Nicholas C. Vella
Part I. Contexts: 1. Phoinix and Poenus: usage in antiquity Jonathan R. W. Prag
2. The invention of the Phoenicians Nicholas C. Vella
3. Punic identities and modern perceptions in the western Mediterranean Peter van Dommelen
4. Phoenicity, Punicities Sandro Filippo Bondì
5. Death among the Punics Carlos Gómez Bellard
6. Coins and their use in the Punic Mediterranean Suzanne Frey-Kupper
Part II. Case Studies: 7. Defining Punic Carthage Boutheina Maraoui Telmini, Roald Docter, Babette Bechtold, Fethi Chelbi and Winfred van de Put
8. Punic identity in North Africa: the funerary world Habib Ben Younès and Alia Krandel-Ben Younès
9. A Carthaginian perspective on the altars of the Philaeni Josephine Crawley Quinn
10. Numidia and the Punic world Virginie Bridoux
11. Punic Mauretania? Emanuele Papi
12. Punic after Punic times? The case of the so-called 'Libyphoenician' coins of southern Iberia Alicia Jiménez
13. More than neighbours: Punic-Iberian connections in southeast Iberia Carmen Aranegui Gascó and Jaime Vives-Ferrándiz Sánchez
14. Identifying Punic Sardinia: local communities and cultural identities Andrea Roppa
15. Phoenician identities in Hellenistic times: strategies and negotiations Corinne Bonnet
Afterword Andrew Wallace-Hadrill.

Subject Areas: Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]