Everything about Tabarka totally explained
Tabarka (
Phoenician
Tabarka,
Thabarka or
Barga by locals) is a coastal town located in north-western
Tunisia, at about, close to the border with
Algeria. It has been famous for its coral fishing, the Coral Festival of underwater photography and the annual
jazz festival. Tabarka's history is a colorful mosaic of
Phoenician,
Roman,
Arabic and
Turkish civilizations. The town is dominated by an offshore rock on which is built a
Genoese castle. Nationalist leader
Habib Bourguiba, later to become president of post-independence Tunisia, was exiled here by the
French colonial authorities in 1952.
History
Thabraca was the last Numidian city in the direction of the
Zeugitana and was a
Roman colony. It was connected by a road with
Simitthu, to which it served as a port for the exportation of its famous
marbles. At Thabraca
Gildo, the brother of Firmus, committed suicide. Under the
Vandal king
Gaiseric it had a monastery for men and one for women
Confronting it, at a distance of about 365 yards, is the small island of
Tabarka, where the Genoese Lomellini, who had purchased the grant of the
coral fishing from the Ottoman Turks, maintained a garrison from 1540 to 1742. Here may still be seen the ruins of a stronghold, a church and some Genoese buildings. At Tabarka the ruins consist of a pit once used as a church and some fragments of walls which belonged to Christian buildings. There were also two Ottoman Turkish fortresses, one of which has been repaired.
In 1741 it was surrendered to the (nominally Ottoman, de facto autonomus) Bey of Tunis. Part of the population was moved to the
Sardinian island of
San Pietro, whose population still speaks a variant of
Genoese dialect originating from Tabarka.
It became Tabarka, under French colonial rule annexed to the civil district of
Souk el-Arba, now in the Tunisian governorate of
Jendouba, and a rather important fishing centre.
Ecclesiastical history
Thabarca still is the (Latin) name of a Roman Catholic
titular see of the former
Roman province of
Numidia near the Mediterranean, between the
Armua and the
Tusca.
The city contains several Christian cemeteries, many of the tombs having covers adorned with curious mosaics. An inscription (C.I.L., VIII, 173-82) mentions the cult of the martyr Anastasia and her companions.
The bishops of Thabraca, who met with those of the
African proconsulate, were: Victoricus, at the
Council of Carthage (256); Rusticianus, at the conference of Carthage in 411, where his competitor was the
Donatist Charentius, and signed in 416 the letter from the council of Proconsular Africa to Pope
Innocent I; Clarissimus, who in 646 signed the letter from the same Council to Patriarch Paul of Constantinople against the
Monothelites.
Sources and external links
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