Nabeul Museum
Thinissut statues and Nymph mosaics.
Mathieu BROSSAIS — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Habib M'henni — CC BY-SA 4.0 · SouthAngel:) — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Marc Ryckaert (MJJR) — CC BY 3.0 · Beata Zdyb — CC BY-SA 3.0
Nabeul, capital of its governorate on the south-east coast of Cap Bon, is the main centre of Tunisian pottery. Hundreds of workshops fill its shops with painted plates, tiles and jars, and a giant glazed jar stands on a roundabout in the centre. It is also known for bitter-orange blossom water, harissa and sandy beaches. Its name comes from Neapolis, Greek for new city. Thucydides, narrating events of 413 BC, calls it a Carthaginian trading post; Rome punished it in 148 BC for siding with Carthage, and it then thrived as a Roman colony making garum, a fermented fish sauce. An earthquake, probably in 365 AD, sank part of it. Potters from Djerba reputedly settled by the ruins in the 15th or 16th century, and ceramists revived decorated wares in the early 20th century. The archaeological museum, opened in 1984, shows terracottas from the sanctuary of Thinissut, including a lion-headed goddess, and Greek-myth mosaics from the House of the Nymphs, a 4th-century Neapolis mansion. The site, 2 km south-west of the centre, keeps vats from one of the Roman world's largest garum works. In the medina, browse the covered Souk el Balgha, once the slipper-makers' market; on Friday mornings the weekly market draws crowds from across Cap Bon. Nabeul lies about 12 km north-east of Hammamet as the crow flies, a short taxi ride away, and about 60 km south-east of Tunis. Allow half a day for the museum, Neapolis and the medina. Kelibia Fort stands some 55 km north-east as the crow flies, up the Cap Bon coast.
Thinissut statues and Nymph mosaics.
Roman garum vats by the sea.
Plates and tiles painted by hand.
Town centre and medina, on the Gulf of Hammamet
Bitter-orange blossom is picked in spring, mostly from mid-March to mid-April, and many families still distil it in a qattar, a traditional still with a copper base and a clay top. The blossom water is sold in the town's souks.
Moulded sugar figures painted with natural colourings, a tradition found nowhere else in Tunisia, made for weddings and for the Islamic New Year, when girls are given a bride, gazelle or fish and boys a cockerel, horse or lion. By custom the New Year figures are broken and eaten on Ashura, the tenth day of the Islamic year.