Overview
The museum of Kerkouane, inaugurated in 1987, houses part of the artefacts discovered during the excavations of the Punic city and the necropolises attributed to it. Collections on display document daily life, religious life and the realm of the dead.
The museum patio show architectural elements, ceramics, especially amphorae. The visitor will appreciate, in particular, a gargoyle decorated with a bull's protome (head); the latter is one of the symbols of the foundation of Carthage and its religion.
The first room is dedicated to daily life. The instrumentum domesticum (dishes, oenochoes, cups, amphorae, lamps, feeding bottle vases, and various other artefacts) open the door of the house and allows the visitor to watch the family living its daily life.
Besides Punic ceramics, there is also imported ceramics, especially Attic ceramics, brought from Greece or Magna Graecia. In the 6th century BC, there was a population in Kerkouane capable of appreciating the culture and aesthetics of the Greeks. To know more about fashion, tastes and cultural contacts, archeologists query artefacts provided by Greece, Southern Italy, Egypt, etc..
This space, dedicated to daily life, also provides information on craftsmen and their know-how. The excavations have allowed recovering goldsmith's molds, in marble, slate and sandstone, which were used to craft bracelets and to reproduce metal leaves decorated with palms.
The Room of the Lady of Kerkouane is dedicated to the realm of the dead. It owes its name to a wooden anthropoid sarcophagus lid depicting the goddess Ashtart, who watches over the tranquility of the dead.
This room contains grave goods removed from the necropolis, and all that relates to funerary beliefs and practices. Visitors may appreciate the reproduction of the famous pictured story painted on the walls of tomb VIII of Mount Melezza, evoking the journey of the soul to the afterlife.
The room dedicated to the gods houses artefacts unearthed during the excavation of the great sanctuary, which, according to current knowledge, claims to be the largest Punic temple in the western Mediterranean. Artefacts on display comprise terracotta figurines representing deities, incense burners in the shape of female heads, terracotta altars, incense-burning altars, lamps, etc.,
Women and Jewelry Room
Jewelry on display in this room stands out by its richness and variety: necklaces, rings, rings, earrings, amulet holders, pendants, beetle seals, etc...; Artefacts on display include hairpins and ivory spindles
At the Museum of Kerkouane, the profane, the sacred and the funerary can be approached. The collections on display contain a wealth of information on a Punic city of the Cap Bon peninsula, and invite reflection on the Punic civilization and the relationships it had with its numerous partners in the Mediterranean.
