Sousse Archaeological Museum

Sousse Archaeological Museum
Musée archéologique de Sousse

Established	1951, re-opened after rebuilding and restoration 2012.
Location	Sousse, Tunisia
Type	Archaeological museum
Collection size	Phoenician (Punic, Carthaginian), Roman, Byzantine, Christian.

The Sousse Archaeological Museum (Arabic: المتحف الأثري بسوسة) is a Tunisian archaeological museum, located in Sousse. Situated at Kasabah of Sousse which was established in the 11th century AD. The museum was founded in 1951 and re-opened in 2012 after a long period of rebuilding and restoration. It contains the second largest collection of mosaics in the world ever after Bardo National Museum at the Tunisian capital. Some votive stelae and urns are desplayed at the punic room date from the 7th century BC. Until the 2nd century AD, they were found by Pierre Cintas in the Tophet of Sousse (calls: Sanctuary of Ba'al-Hammon too. It contains too some gorgeous mosaics such us "Head of Medusa", Face of Oceanus , Neptune on his sea-chariot, the Nilotic scene, and many others.. A baptismal font made with mosaics was found at El-Knissia is on display with Christian some themed decorative terracotta tablets. We find also some marbel statues from the Roman epoc such us the bust of emperor Hadrian and the statue of Roman fertility and manhood god Periapus with his huge phallus... Some funerary artifacts are on display too, they have been found at Hadrumetum (Roman Sousse)'s catacombs like from the Catacomb of Good Shepherd, and the Catacomb of Hermes... You can see also some local pottery, pottery from Greece found within the Punic tombs at El-Kasabah, oil lamps, and some marble funerary epitaphs engraved in Greek and Latin languages, and among these epitaphs you find the famous marble tablet engraved with the figure of the "Good Shepherd" which gave its name to the Catacomb where it was found, etc....

Edited by : Raafat Mry Kmt, Licence degree in Archaeology and Patrimony.

Sousse Archaeological Museum

See also