Nouvelles recherches archéologiques et bio-archéologiques dans le sanctuaire de Tanit et Ba‘l Hammon à Carthage

New excavations conducted at the Tophet of Carthage in 2017 and 2018, and again in 2023, led to the discovery of several hundred urns. The precision of the stratigraphic observations, along with the relatively limited extent of later disturbances, allows for accurate dating. The recorded observations concern not only the relative positioning of the urns but also their arrangement within the pits and the surface conditions from which they were excavated. These circumstances provided an exceptional opportunity to study a significant corpus using the most current methods of archaeothanatology, applied to secondary cremation deposits, particularly concerning young children. This article presents a first assessment of two years of prior research work and six additional campaigns, which took the form of intensive training sessions. Innovative information has been obtained regarding the presence of remains from multiple individuals within the same urn, the cremation rituals, the partial direct clearing of funeral pyre residues, and the methods of depositing burned bones, both human and animal, into the urns

Cave · Clearing · Excavation · Work (physics · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Paleopathology and ancient diseases