Carthage tower model

{{Short description|Limestone model of a tower with a Punic inscription from Carthage}}

File:Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum CIS I 179, 181 (from Carthage).jpg]]

File:Nathan Davis Phoenician Inscriptions from Carthage in the British Museum (1856-58) 51.jpg

The Carthage tower model is a limestone model of a tower with a Punic inscription, found in Carthage by Nathan Davis in 1856–58 in Husainid Tunisia.{{cite book | last=Lipiński | first=E. | title=Itineraria Phoenicia | publisher=Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oosterse Studies | series=Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta | year=2004 | isbn=978-90-429-1344-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLSzNfdcqfoC&pg=PA152 | language=es | access-date=2024-08-23 | page=152}}Davis N 1863 / Inscriptions in the Phoenican Character (pl.26, 73)

It has a diameter of 13.3 cm and a height of 41.1 cm. It is in the British Museum, with ID number 125324.{{cite web | title=stela (?) | website=The British Museum | date=2004-06-26 | url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1857-1218-37 | access-date=2024-08-23}}

Of all the inscriptions found by Davis, it was one of just three that was not a traditional Carthaginian tombstone - the other two being number 71 (the Son of Baalshillek marble base) and number 90 (the Carthage Tariff), which contained a bevelled architectural ornamentation.Nathan Davis, 1863, [https://archive.org/details/gri_33125016531358/page/n106/mode/1up Inscriptions in the Phœnician character, now deposited in the British Museum, discovered on the site of Carthage, during researches made by Nathan Davis, esq; at the expense of Her Majesty's government, in the years 1856, 1857, and 1858], page 3

Donald Harden wrote that it may represent a lighthouse or a watch tower, and may provide evidence for a type of multistory building in Carthaginian architecture. The model appears to show three stories, and may have originally been more; the bottom arch is considered to be a door, the middle story contains three shallow round arched windows, and part of a top story with five deeper and narrower windows with their tops missing.Harden (1962), The Phoenicians, p.132-133, 302 CIS wrote that: “The cippus is round, rising in the form of a tower, in the lower part of which is an arched gate, and above it three windows are shaped in the same manner as a vault. The top of the tower is finned.“CIS I 181: “Cippus est rotundus, in turris formam exsurgens, cujus in parte inferiore porta fornicata et supra fenestræ tres eundem in modum concameratæ figurantur. Turris summa pinnata est.“

The inscription states:

To the lady Tanit face of Baal and to the lord to Baal Hammon which vowed Bodmelqart son of 'Abdmelqart son of Himilkot for he heard his voice, and blessed him.