Recent Excavations at Carthage. 205 The whole peninsula is covered with shapeless ruins, furnishing but scanty indications of the buildings to which they belonged or of their relative ages, every available stone having been carried away for building material. Such is the physical aspect of the site of Carthage. The exact topography of the various portions of the city, whether Punic or Roman, has given rise to much controversy and diversity of opinion. Belidor, Shaw, Estrup, Humbert, Chateaubriand, Mannert, Hitter, and others have put forth various and con- tradictory views on the subject.* This was partly owing to the insufficient evidence at their command, and it was not till 1833 that antiquaries were in a condition to enter into the question of the topography of Carthage on data at all satisfactory. In that year Monsieur Falbe, Consul-General of Denmark at Tunis, published an elaborate map of the peninsula on a scale of nearly four inches to a mile, noting every little heap of ruins and peculiarity of outline." This work was executed under considerable disadvantages, owing to the necessity of not awakening the jealousy of the native rulers, who had not then adopted their present more liberal policy. M. Falbe also published a short memoir to accompany his map, but without attempting any minute identification of the localities. This lias however been accomplished to a considerable extent by M. Dureau do la Mallc, r who has published a very interesting memoir on the various points of Carthaginian topo- graphy, Punic, Roman, and Byzantine, in which he has collected and compared the statements of ancient authors. It is, however, beyond the scope of this communication to discuss the various matters of interest and remaining doubts connected with the plan of the Carthaginian city. It will be sufficient to describe very shortly the principal sites which seem to have been established by the researches in question. The great subject of controversy has been the position of the ports of Carthage ; of which Appian d furnishes us with a minute description. There was an outer Belidor, Architect. Hydraul. torn. ii. p. 36, pi. i. ; Shaw, Travels in Barbary and the Levant, vol. i. p. 165 ; Estrup, Lineos Topogr. Carthag. Tyrice (Miscell. Hufn. ii. part i. 1821); Chateaubriand, Itinerant, torn. ii. p. 208 (1836); Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. i. p. 914,1822; Sir Grenville Temple, Excursions in the Mediterranean, vol. i. ch. iv. 1835; Mannert, Geogr. der Griechen und Romer, Africa, part ii. ch. ix. p. 264, 1826 ; Heinrich Earth, Wanderungen durch die Kustenlander des Mittelmeeres, vol. i. p. 80, 1849. The several plans of some of the above writers are represented in the work of Dureau de la Malle, Recherches sur la Topographie de Carthage. See also Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography, under Carthago. " Recherches sur F Emplacement de Carthage, f[C., par C. T. Falbe. Fol. Paris, 1833. e Recherches sur la Topographic de Carthage, par M. Dureau de la Malle. 8vo. Paris, 1835. d Punica, viii. 96.
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