Introduction: A City Lost to Time

Carthage wasn’t always a mighty city with huge walls, fast ships, and famous generals. Once, it was just a small group of people landing on a quiet piece of coastline, looking for a fresh start. They came by sea, carrying everything they owned in boats made of wood and ropes. These people were skilled traders and sailors from a place far across the Mediterranean Sea, and they were used to starting new towns in faraway lands. This time, they picked a spot that would one day become one of the richest and most powerful cities in the ancient world.

The land they settled on had a beautiful curve of coastline and gentle hills that looked out over the sea. It was perfect for building a harbor. The soil was rich and good for farming, and nearby forests provided wood for building. And best of all, it was located right in the middle of some of the most important trade routes in the ancient world. It was like putting a store at the busiest corner of a city—everyone would pass by eventually.

Now, this new town needed a name. They called it Qart Hadasht, which means “New City” in their language. You can probably hear how that turned into the word “Carthage” over time. It was a new home, but they brought their old traditions with them—foods they loved, gods they prayed to, ways of building and farming and trading. Even though they were in a new place, they still carried the spirit of where they came from.

There’s a story that often gets told about the founding of Carthage. It’s not a fact the way “two plus two equals four” is a fact, but it’s the kind of story people have passed down for hundreds of years. It’s about a woman named Dido. Some say she was a queen who ran away from danger in her home city, looking for safety. She landed on the coast of North Africa and asked the local people for some land to build a home. They told her she could have as much land as could fit inside the hide of a single ox.

Now, most people would’ve gotten a little patch of dirt and left it at that. But Dido was clever. She cut the oxhide into thin strips—really thin—and stretched them out to make a giant loop. Inside that loop of leather, she claimed enough space for a whole citadel, or fortress. That place became the heart of Carthage. Some versions of the story say she even built a temple to honor her gods right there, and that people came from far and wide to see what she had done.

Again, we don’t know if Queen Dido was a real person or a legend, but her story gives us a sense of how people thought of Carthage: smart, bold, and ready to grow.

At first, Carthage was small—just a few buildings and a harbor. But it didn’t stay that way. It grew fast. The people who lived there didn’t just sit around waiting for things to happen. They traded with nearby villages, set up markets, and sent ships to faraway lands. They built tall stone walls to protect themselves and added roads, homes, temples, and workshops. They used mud bricks and stone, and their builders knew how to make things strong and neat. Some homes had courtyards in the middle where families could gather, talk, and cook meals.

Even the layout of Carthage was smart. The city was split into different areas: places for living, places for working, places for worship, and a powerful harbor that held their warships and merchant boats. The harbor was shaped like a circle, with a small island in the middle where the admiral—the person in charge of the navy—kept an eye on things. It was so well-designed that even the Romans were amazed when they saw it later.

One reason Carthage became so important was because of trade. The people there didn’t just build things—they sold things, and they bought things, too. They traded purple dye, which came from tiny sea snails and was worth a lot of money. Only rich people could afford it, and wearing purple was a sign that you were powerful. They also traded silver, tin, gold, ivory, spices, cloth, and even animals. Carthaginian traders were famous for traveling far across the sea to bring back goods that other people had never seen before.

But Carthage wasn’t just about money. It was a place where people lived full lives. Kids played games in the streets, families shared meals, and priests led religious ceremonies at temples. People prayed to gods like Baal Hammon and Tanit, hoping for good weather, strong crops, and protection from harm. Some of the religious practices were very different from what we’re used to today, and some of them are still being studied by historians to understand exactly what happened during those ancient rituals.

Carthage had its own way of writing, too. They used a script based on the Phoenician alphabet, and they scratched it into stone and painted it onto pottery. They didn’t leave behind many books, but they did leave behind lots of objects with writing on them—tombstones, temple offerings, trade tags—and those give us clues about how they lived, what they believed, and even what their names were.

As the city grew, it also became more powerful. It wasn’t just a town anymore—it was an empire. Carthage began to control other towns and cities nearby. It set up colonies on islands and coastlines around the Mediterranean. These colonies weren’t just little outposts—they were full of people living Carthaginian lives, spreading their culture and their power wherever they went.

But even with all that expansion, Carthage never forgot the sea. The ocean was their lifeline. They built ships that could travel fast and carry heavy loads. They had warships with pointed rams on the front to crash into enemy boats. Their sailors were among the best in the world, and their maps helped guide them through tricky waters.