“It was divided into market gardens and orchards of all sorts of fruit trees, with many streams of water flowing in channels irrigating every part. There were country houses everywhere, lavishly built and covered with stucco, which testified to the wealth of their owners…Part of the land was planted with vines, part with olives and other protective trees. Beyond these, cattle and sheep were pastured on the plains, and there were meadows filled with grazing horses.”
A description of the Cap Bon by Diodorus Siculus, a historian writing in Rome in the first century BC

This 6th century BC Carthaginian site, located halfway between Kelibia and El Haouaria, has produced a great number of funerary objects. Its discovery in 1952 provided enormous excitement about the streets and house-plans uncovered. The excitement turned to confusion as not a single public building (i.e. Forum, etc) has been found. The eccentric theory concocted to explain this was that Kerkouane was a 5th century BC holiday resort. The Kerkouane holiday resort theory has since been abandoned. Researchers now believe that the city’s main industry was manufacturing a purple dye, called murex, for which Phoenicians were famous. The lack of public buildings remains unexplained.

Kerkouane existed for 300 years before it was destroyed by Roman forces under Regulus in 256 BC and abandoned. It is the largest Carthaginian site discovered to date. Since it was never reoccupied by Romans, it is in a remarkable state of preservation.

Excavations have revealed a neatly laid-out small town with a semicircular outer wall. Judging on the well-appointed courtyard-style houses, it is likely that citizens led very comfortable lives.
Kerkouane’s houses are most famous for their private baths lined with a reddish cement. Virtually every house had its own bath, showing that while Romans developed vast public baths, the Carthaginians kept a private, introverted profile.