Talk:Carthage

BC/AD vs BCE/CE for dates
There appears to be an edit war over how to represent years in this article. Can we stop that please. As I understand it, the use of BCE/CE is more neutral as it doesn't refer to a particular religious figure, so favouring that as per WP:NPOV. Happy to favour the other if there's a good reason, but let's decide and then stop warring over it. Donama (talk) 00:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comparing the proportion of articles that are BC to those that have BCE on wikpedia with the proportion of books on the classical era suggest that BCE style is underrepresented and this especially true of the main articles such as this. Wikipedia should reflect standard academic usage and hence I agree with Donama.Dejvid (talk) 14:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I prefer CE and BCE myself but just wanted to point out that per WP:ERA, Wikipedia has no preference: "AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras. CE and BCE are becoming more common in academic and some religious writing. No preference is given to either style." I'm all in favor of supporting WP:CONSENSUS for CE and BCE in this article for the reasons given by the two preceding editors. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 16:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

for pete's sake, just use BC and AD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.127.197.143 (talk) 20:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:ERA
Per, this edit (unusually) established the usage of this page as. Dr. K., is there some reason you're undoing that formatting in the name of ? I, for one, don't mind establishing a consensus of —it's terser, standard, avoids edit warring, less precious, and no less neutral than which is, after all, still based on the computation for Jesus's birth—but it's not like the policy currently defends your edits, let alone wholesale reverts of other editors' improvements to the page. — Llywelyn II   01:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)


 * let alone wholesale reverts of other editors' improvements to the page I am sure you can read my edit-summary where I mentioned that I was going to restore your edits. Which I did. See the diff between your changes and my last edit. There is no change other than the date format. So I am not sure why you mentioned "wholesale reverts" since I restored all of your edits. I also don't appreciate you calling my edits "mangled" when they were anything but. Actually your subsequent edits restored the previous version which contained vandalism. But I'm not telling you you mangled your edits. That's not my style. As far as ERA, I quote:
 * So I'm not sure what your objection is to following the ERA MOS. Dr.   K.  01:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Clarification I reverted the date format change made by the IP today. If you want to restore it to the version Larry had it when he created the article, that's your choice. I will not challenge that. I was not aware of that until you linked to the earliest version of the article. Dr.   K.  02:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The whole "WP:ERA" thing goes back to 2010. Our position is that the two notations are equivalent, i.e. neither is "more neutral" or "less biased" than the other. Because some people feel differently (either way), the best we can do is stick to the style chosen by the article's original developers. We do need to return to whichever that was for reasons of consistency (so as not to "reward" people who successfully sneak in an "era style change"). In this case, checking back to 2009, the style was "AD/BC". For aesthetic reasons / consistency, it will not do to end up with a "mixed" article which switches between "era styles". So, the best we can do is to revert to the style used back in 2009, if only to discourage editors to try and create a fuss what should be a non-issue (it's the Dionysian era no matter how you abbreviate it. You don't have to like Dionysus (not to mention Christ, or the year of his birth or non-birth), but it's the era in worldwide use  de facto). --dab (𒁳) 12:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR
On a related note, this edit established the page's usage as American English. Kindly maintain it consistently pending a new consensus to the contrary. — Llywelyn II   01:38, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Article scope
The article was mixing up the municipality, a suburb with population 20,000 established 1919 with the archaeological site (excavated since 1833) and with the ancient history of the city. I made a separate article for the municipality now, Carthage (municipality). There should be a separate page on Roman Carthage and on Carthage (archaeological site). This page should avoid being a WP:CFORK of History of Carthage. Perhaps it will be best to turn this into the article on the archaeological site (observe the well-developed French article, fr:Site archéologique de Carthage. --dab (𒁳) 12:50, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * That makes sense, and I was going to suggest something similar. Whatever happens, Carthage should be the base and parent article which should cover what a general reader would expect to find if doing a search for Carthage, which would be an overview of Carthage and its empire with some mention of the Punic Wars. From the main Carthage article, child articles would be split out per WP:Summary style for more detailed coverage, such as History of Carthage, allowing more depth than the main article. The modern settlement has little relation to the topic, except as a curious footnote which could be dealt with as a single sentence in the main article, so it seems fully appropriate that it is split off. The common name for Carthage (archaeological site) is Archaeological Site of Carthage, and that is a styling used on Wikipedia (Archaeological site of Cabeço do Vouga) so I think it should be named that.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  11:16, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * We only have 2 paras currently on the excavations, which are about the right length for a summary in the main article. There is as yet nothing to split off. Johnbod (talk) 04:04, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Merge
As we now have an article on the modern settlement (Carthage (municipality)) it is proposed to bring Ancient Carthage back into Carthage.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  08:52, 14 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Support.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  08:52, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep. Zerotalk 12:48, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Support . Oppose. I've been wavering on this, and now I think it's best to keep the articles separate. Carlstak (talk) 00:43, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Cartage is for the city (ancient and modern); ancient Carthage is for the Empire.GreyShark (dibra) 20:29, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sources do not separate them, why do you feel Wikipedia should? If you can provide a source that deals only with the city and not the civilisation that would be a starting point for a discussion. There is a proposal for Carthage (archaeological site), and I support that, and we have Carthage (municipality) to deal with the barely interesting and barely notable modern location that has little connection with Carthage as it is understood in sources dealing with the main topic, so having Carthage and Ancient Carthage to deal with the civilisation we know as Carthage is simply a confusing duplication. Carthage was the civilisation - it was founded in the city we know as Carthage, and created a trading empire in the west Mediterranean, and went to war with Rome several times, finally losing, and having the city destroyed completely. That is the story. It needs to be dealt with in one main article. Specific detailed sections, such as the wars with Rome, can and should be dealt with in separate articles, but having two articles dealing with the same main topic, so both readers and editors are unsure which article provides the overview, and which should have information on the city's foundation, and the city's destruction, and the city's relationship with neighbours, etc, is unhelpful.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  09:08, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I apologize for the vacillation. I agree philosophically with your points,, but we do have the analogous case of Rome vis-à-vis Ancient Rome, Roman Empire, and History of Rome. Would it be possible to present your synthesis of the articles in a sandbox, so that other editors can see beforehand what's going to be lost or gained in the transition? I would like to see it before I change my vote. Given that much of Carthage consists of summaries that refer to the main articles covering those topics anyway, merging it with Ancient Carthage doesn't seem problematic, but since the Carthage (municipality) article covers the modern city, why not call the proposed consolidated article "Ancient Carthage" or "Carthaginian Empire" rather than "Carthage" if a consensus for the merge is reached? Carlstak (talk) 16:08, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I just reread SilkTork's words, "Whatever happens, Carthage should be the base and parent article which should cover what a general reader would expect to find if doing a search for Carthage...". I would still like to see what the proposed parent article, whatever it might be called, would look like, and how the content of the present articles, Carthage and Ancient Carthage, would be distributed in the proposed synthesis. The proposed article should be taken to an advanced stage of editing in a sandbox by the community, with commentary on its talk page taken into consideration, before any of the present articles' content is obliterated. Carlstak (talk) 02:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose per opposers. The two articles are too long for another thing. For another, Carthage deals with the Roman and medieval city as well. History of Carthage is now 111K crude bytes after you have rammed a lot of stuff in there, Carthage is 89K, and Ancient Carthage 93K. At these sizes, mergers are out of the question. Johnbod (talk) 03:52, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree the two articles are too long - there is still a process of trimming and splitting out into sub-articles to be done. But when looking at it, I realised that I didn't know which was the base article Carthage or Ancient Carthage. The topic of Carthage and its empire is called by sources "Carthage", so that should be the base article, with sub articles coming off it per WP:Summary style. I am not fully clear on what the intention is for the Ancient Carthage article, unless the intention is to deal with the Carthaginian Empire, though it appears from my reading that the Empire and Carthage itself are treated the same in sources, and we don't have books just on one or the other - the two names appear to be synonymous. I'm not sure it is helpful in this case to be looking at how other ancient civilisations are dealt with, as each civilisation is unique, and what is interesting about Carthage is that the city and the civilisation was completely destroyed, yet the city was later re-founded by the Romans under the same name. But that is Roman Carthage, as recently restored by User:Dbachmann who appears to me to be doing positive things with this topic. I am not well at the moment, so cannot work for extended periods; as such I work very slowly at the moment. Doing a sandbox of how the Carthage topic should be dealt, with the relevant sub article, will take time - especially if I'm just doing it by myself. What I would prefer is that there was a consensus to improve the topic - which starts by establishing the main topic page, and the sub articles, and then as a community we work to improve the topic. If there is no consensus to merge the two topics, would it be worth trying to establish an agreement on what should go in the articles, and what they should be called. The current names are misleading. Carthage was at war with Rome, and with the Greeks, and those topics are already covered in Sicilian Wars, Punic Wars, and Pyrrhic War, so these topics should be briefly summarised with links to the relevant articles in the main Carthage page. But which is it? Currently this occurs in Ancient Carthage, but the wars are but briefly mentioned in Carthage. Yet it is to Carthage that readers (such as myself) would go for the overview of the civilisation known as Carthage. There is a section on the government of Carthage in Ancient Carthage, and a section on Constitution of State in Carthage. There is a section on the economy of Carthage in Ancient Carthage, and a section on Trade and business in Carthage. The articles are not clearly defined, and they duplicate information in differently named sections, and when splitting up aspects of the topic of Carthage itself, it is not clear what the two articles are about as it appears they are about the same thing - the civilisation called Carthage.


 * Summary of above: What I suggest is we have one main article called Carthage, and that we have sub articles to deal with the various aspects of the civilisation and related topics, such as Roman Carthage, the Punic Wars, the modern settlement, the proposed Carthage (archaeological site), trade, including Carthaginian currency, government, Military of Carthage, etc.
 * This is not going to happen overnight, and I can't do it alone in the sandbox. Which is why I have been seeking consensus as I go along. This topic was misdirected in the past, and gradually we are getting it back on track. Having one base main article would greatly assist that progress. Having two poorly defined articles which duplicate material, is not going to help matters. If there is no agreement for a merge, we should define what Ancient Carthage should be about and name it appropriately.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  08:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This is largely nonsense, frankly. The hatnotes and first paras make it fairly clear what the topics are; I'm mystified why you seem to have missed these. Carthage was far from being a city-state, with far-ranging colonies. Ancient Carthage deals with the civilization, and is mostly wars, trade and colonies. Carthage sticks fairly closely to the capital, though of course there is some overlap when it comes to politics. If it was common to speak of the Carthaginian Empire we would not have this apparent problem. The ambiguity between city and empire is even more marked in references to ancient Rome, and one just has to live with it. We should perhaps rename Ancient Carthage to Carthaginian civilization, and perhaps swop some sections around, and leave it at that. Johnbod (talk) 15:10, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Contemplating the proposed changes to all these articles with long-standing content, to be replaced with-God-knows-what, makes my head hurt. I agree with the substance of Johnbod's remarks. The articles as they are now contain a wealth of sourced information about a complex subject. Renaming one or the other as per consensus and moving some content around with a bit of rewriting should be sufficient. Carlstak (talk) 16:02, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I understand that because the two articles already exist that people don't see the problem. But look, for example, at Carthage and Ancient_Carthage - these sections deal with the same material. They are written differently as they were written by different editors at different times, but they cover the same ground, and there is a lot of duplication of material. Either section could appear in either article. I think what folks want is what has been proposed above, but hasn't yet been carried through - an article on the archaeological site of Carthage. I think that is perhaps what has been intended for some time, but has got conflated with Roman Carthage and the modern settlement. Now that we have an article on the modern settlement, and an article on Roman Carthage, and there is a page ready for the archaeological site, it is time for us to bring together the material we have on Carthage and Ancient Carthage, tidy it up (which would mainly mean keeping the material in Ancient Carthage as the better formulated of the two articles), split out material on the site to Carthage (archaeological site) (or whatever name is felt most appropriate - Archaeological Site of Carthage is the standard form), and also split out in summary form those details which are felt worthwhile covering in depth (perhaps trade and government). My point is that no source I have yet read treats the Carthage civilisation by splitting it into city and empire, other than Wikipedia, and - disturbingly - this split is starting to appear in Wikipedia mirrors, which means that instead of reflecting and summarising existing knowledge, what is happening is that Wikipedia is starting to change that knowledge. The split which was made from Carthage in 2007 to create Ancient Carthage (or rather Carthaginian Empire as it was named then) was done per this discussion to create an article on the archaeological site. But what has happened is that the Carthage page has over the years developed to include the archaeological site, the modern settlement, and also an overview of the civilisation. What I am proposing is that we return to that original 2007 suggestion, and the recent suggestion above, to have an article on the archaeological site, and one on the civilisation.
 * Perhaps the easiest way of doing this would be to change the name of Ancient Carthage to Carthage (essentially keeping that article as it is) and change the name of Carthage to Archaeological Site of Carthage, and then tidy up Archaeological Site of Carthage to make it more focused on the archaeological site.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  06:47, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No we don't see the problem. Your solution is not want "folks want", but what you want. You just repeat your statements. You do not have consensus for this. Johnbod (talk) 12:13, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry you are not seeing the problem. How can I help you see the problem Johnbod? I don't wish to repeat myself, but you don't appear to be responding to my concerns. Your statement above is not an argument - it is you saying DONTLIKE. I'm not sure how much you have considered my argument, as you don't rebut it. I have addressed your concerns about size by saying that there is trimming to be done, duplication to be removed, and decisions to be made as to what additional sub-articles need to be created. But I'm not here to work against a consensus, and if I am not able to explain my concerns clearly enough, then no problem, I will leave this topic alone.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  13:26, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose I think it's best to keep the articles separate. (N0n3up (talk) 04:08, 31 May 2016 (UTC))

There is more than one way of doing this, and there is legitimate room for disagreement, but things cannot just stay as they are, because it's confusing to editors, with the result that material gets appended randomly to random pages. We need We have so the last two in both lists are unambiguous, but we seem to have four articles with unclear delineation of scope. This needs to be fixed one way or another. I think the main problem is that nobody has a clear idea what the Carthage page is supposed to be about. So somebody went and made Ancient Carthage, which made things worse, because the problem didn't go away, it was duplicated. --dab (𒁳) 07:22, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) an article on the ancient Punic city
 * 2) an article on the Phoenician/Carthaginian Empire
 * 3) an article on the Roman city
 * 4) an article on the modern municipality
 * 1) Carthage
 * 2) Ancient Carthage
 * 3) History of Carthage
 * 4) Phoenicia
 * 5) Roman Carthage
 * 6) Carthage (municipality)
 * I think the titles are unclear, but the hatnotes and leads actually reasonably clear. Expanding what the current articles actually mostly contain, we have:


 * 1) Carthage = History of the city of Carthage, all periods, with a good deal on the archaeology.
 * 2) Ancient Carthage = mostly History of the Carthaginian Empire
 * 3) History of Carthage = a longer History of the Carthaginian Empire, plus summaries of Roman Carthage and Modern Carthage.
 * 4) Phoenicia = history of the Phoenician culture, much on the period before Carthage was founded, and more on the Levant than Africa.
 * 5) Roman Carthage = what it says
 * 6) Carthage (municipality) = modern Cathage. Short, mainly the history since the Muslim period.


 * - as dab says, 5 & 6 are unproblemmatic. 1 should be renamed, and 2 & 3 probably merged or reorganized, possibly involving 4. A split between cultural and political/military history might be one way. But many bits could be moved between the articles. A reminder of the sizes: History of Carthage is now 111K crude bytes, Carthage is 89K, Ancient Carthage 93K, Phoenicia 93K, so simple merges probably impossible. A split-off "military history" would help. Carthage should probably be a disam page - not a thing I like, but probably the best alternative here. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Here again, I agree substantively with 's comments. Apropos of 's assertion that we need an article on the Phoenician/Carthaginian Empire, I maintain categorically that the Phoenician and Carthaginian empires are two different subjects, and require separate articles under whatever titles consensus decides will accommodate them. Carlstak (talk) 18:44, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Strongest oppose possible. A monumentally terrible idea and a disservice to ancient Carthage at that. Especially when the most logical solution would be to merge the Carthage (municipality) article into this one, Carthage. The article ancient Carthage DESERVES its own article, just as we have separate articles for the city of Rome and the Roman Empire, just as we have separate articles for Venice and the Venetian Republic. The article History of Carthage is not an equivalent to the article Ancient Carthage, since the former does not provide information on Carthage's culture, economy, military, art, language, religion, etc. and other things. That's to be expected, since that article's main focus is naturally on the political and military history of the city-state and Punic empire. Pericles of Athens  Talk 19:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Poetic Meter
Within the "Topography" section is a quote from Fitzgerald's translation of the Aeneid, by Virgil. Yet it appears in iambic pentameter, while Virgil used dactylic hexameter. Perhaps another translation, such as the one by Robert Fagles, is more appropriate?Princetoniac (talk) 23:16, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

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Faulty area conversion.
Under "Topography" it is stated: "The "first urban nucleus" dating to the seventh century, in area about ten hectares (or four acres),...." This can't be right. 1 hectare equals +/- 2.5 acres. Therefore it should be either "ten hectares (or twenty-five acres)" or "ten acres (or four hectares)" whichever is the right pair of values. Kvrijt (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ Carlstak (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

The use of "Punic" as the name of the people and language of Carthage.
Throughout these articles, the name "Punic" is used for the people and language of Carthage. That gives a misleading impression of who and what they were. "Punic" (derived from Greek) was the Roman name for both the people and their language. It was not the name used by the Carthaginians themselves. which was kn'ni, that is Canaanite. Their language was that of their original homeland, Canaan, which encompassed the whole of the Levant between Asia Minor and Egypt,both the northern half, which the Greeks called Phoenicia, and the Southern half which they called Palestine. The Roman names were derived from the Greek. The natives and their neighbours called it kn'n (Canaan) and had done so since at least the fifteenth century BCE. Their language was essentially the same as the one we call Hebrew and was written in the same alphabetical script from which both the Greek and Latin alphabets are derived. Giving primacy to the Roman name "Punic" in an articles about ancient Carthage rather obscures its history.82.13.54.200 (talk) 11:46, 12 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but WE don't call them Canaanites. We call the Phoenecians, Carthagians or Punic. 37.248.178.100 (talk) 18:46, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Recent research on Carthaginian child sacrifice
As some may know, whether or not the Carthaginians practiced child sacrifice is some of the most debated of subjects in the academy on ancient history. Thus, I was surprised that some very important recent research from 2013, which seems to pull the debate in favor of their practicing it, isn't mentioned in the article yet. They should be added. Here's the papers;

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/cemetery-or-sacrifice-infant-burials-at-the-carthage-tophet/EA2F96A8FD7229800391B766C95ECBE1

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/cemetery-or-sacrifice-infant-burials-at-the-carthage-tophet/DAC7C386CD20F5C280C9DB41E5184A2E

Some coverage in the media;

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-sacrificed-own-children-study 64.229.115.87 (talk) 02:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Existential Threat by the Vandals
"Cutting the skin into strips, she laid out her claim and founded an empire that would become, through the Punic Wars, the only existential threat to Rome until the coming of the Vandals several centuries later."

This statement is not very precise and also not correct as to why the Vandals were first new existential threat to Rome. Assuming that the author defines 'existential threat' as threat to the existence of the city of Rome itself, then several other invading tribe coalitions that threatened to sack (for instance the Huns) or effectively sacked the city (such as the Visigoths) should be named first. There is also some discussion about how severe this sacking was and no big burning of the city occured. The threat to Rome came - next to the internal struggles of the (Western) Empire as well as the decreasing importance from the new tribal coalitions that were more powerful and harder to deal with then the single Barbarian tribes of e.g. the early principate.

A better phrase would be therefore ".. the only existential threat to Rome until the Migration Period and the appearance of larger barbarian tribes at Rome's boarders." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.146.211.135 (talk) 11:51, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Questionable Flaubert claim and date
In the "Archaeological site" section of this article, I edited the wikilink to point to Salammbô, not Salammbô (Reyer). However, I noticed that this article claims that Flaubert's Salammbô was published in 1858, while the article on Salammbô gives the date of publication as 1862. There is no source on Carthage for the claim about Flaubert. Looks like there is a need for some fixin'. Carhutt (talk) 18:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
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Economy
GDP : 183.4 million US $ GDP per capita: 11518 $ GDP by sector: 6% agriculture 94% services Tourism provide 22% of the city gdp 197.15.56.211 (talk) 04:07, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source for this information? See WP:SOURCES. Largoplazo (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Eighth Crusade contradiction?
The intro of this article states Carthage "was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade." When you follow the link to the article on the Eighth Crusade, it states, "The Crusade did not see any significant fighting as King Louis died of dysentery shortly after arriving on the shores of Tunisia." Montemanm1 (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit: Further in the Eighth Crusade article, under the section "Campaign and the death of Louis IX", it states "The Genoan sailors captured the fortress and, slaughtering the inhabitants, using it as their base of operations." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montemanm1 (talk • contribs) 16:06, 9 January 2023 (UTC)