Our Third Fieldtrip: Utica, Bizerte, and Lac Ichkeul
One thing of note before we start on the photos. At Lac Ichkeul, there isn't any photography allowed. It's a large wildlife preserve and over the last few years, commercial photography operations have come in, shot movies and photos, and left without paying. to stop that, the authorities have banned all photos.
The roman site of Utica lies on a broad alluvial plain of the river Medjerda. it's the only permanent year-round river in all of Tunisia. The river supplies much of the north of the country with irrigation water but also has for centuries been silting up the once great ports of the north.
In recent years, Utica has been a small site about 10km from the coast but at its height, it once sat right on the coast. such is the way of changing sea levels! Utica was the first phoenician trading post on the Tunisian coastline, predating carthage. It was on the loosing side of a few battles with Carthage including its revolt against the central authority of Carthage in 240BC. Later, in 146 BC, Utica supported the romans in the last phonecian war. later, it supported pompey against julius caeser in the roman civil war.
the site of Utica itself is fairly obscure, with the majority of the town yet to be excavated.
we believe this sign means "caution! exploding cars!" or "car bombs allowed in this zone only" either way, its a funny sign.
Bizerte has always been an important coastal port, once serving as the base of operations for several muslim corsair fleets. Originally, it was a phoenician port. the phoenicians called it Hippo Diarrhytus and were the first people to dig a canal between the sea and Lac Bizerte, creating a vast inland harbor. When the romans showed up, they improved the canal and built many of the typical roman necessities in town. Later on, the Arabs changed the name to Benzert. Finally, it changed to Bizerte. During the 16th century, Bizerte found itself in the front lines of the Turco-Spanish struggles. Charles V punished the town for supporting the corsair Barbarossa with a brutal raid in 1535 which caused a building boom shortly there after to repair the city.
The french took over the city early on in the occupation of Tunisia, realizing it's strategic importance. After the completion of the Suez Canal, the french brought some of the dredging equipment to Bizerte to enlarge and deepen the canal for purely "commercial" interests. They subsequently turned it into a huge naval base and went so far as to hold onto the town well after independence, only handing it over after tunisian military action in 1961 in which 1000 tunisians lost their lives. from the french legacy, the town still is dominated by heavy industry, housing the first blast furnace in africa among other large industrial complexes. more recently, a silicon fab has been built outside of town by a german company. hi-tech is moving into tunisia in a big way and using Bizerte as it's beachhead.
The old port
Joey suggesting to Anne that a piggiback ride is in order.
The new channel leading into Lac Bizerte and the industrial complex left behind by the french.
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