Near East · 4th century BC · Sidi Saïd, Bargou, Siliana, Tunisia
2,400-year-old Numidian house built against a town wall found in Tunisia
A Tunisian and Catalan team recovered the almost complete floor plan of a 4th-century BC house at Sidi Saïd, a settlement nobody reoccupied in Roman times.
Sidi Saïd, Bargou, Tunisia Archaeologists in northern Tunisia have recovered the almost complete floor plan of a Numidian house from the 4th century BC. The house had several rooms and was built against the defensive wall of the settlement of Sidi Saïd. The Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) says this is the first time a Numidian house with a practically complete plan has been documented.
The find came during the second excavation season at Sidi Saïd, in Bargou in Siliana province. The season ran from 16 September to 6 October 2026. Tunisia's National Heritage Institute (INP) and ICAC run the dig under a cooperation agreement.
Yamen Sghaïer and Chokri Touihri of the INP directed the work. They were joined by Maria Carme Belarte and David Montanero of ICAC's MIRMED research group. Researchers, conservators and students from Tunisia and Catalonia also took part, and the Palarq Foundation funds the project.
A house built against the defences
The house lies in zone 3, in the north-east of the settlement. Its rooms follow a fairly complex layout. It was built in the 4th century BC, possibly earlier, and was altered several times while it was in use.
The builders set it up against the wall that enclosed and protected the settlement. The team had already found this wall in another sector during the 2025 season. ICAC says the house helps to reconstruct the layout of Sidi Saïd and to study how homes related to the town's defences.
A full floor plan tells archaeologists more than a few isolated walls. It lets them ask what happened in each room. It also lets them ask how one household fitted into the defensive system around it.
In zone 1, next to the area dug in 2017–2018, the team learned more about building methods, materials and household fittings, especially hearths. Many objects were in excellent condition, and some were nearly complete. They include locally made pottery, pottery from Carthage and objects designed to hold vessels over a fire.
ICAC says these finds will help the study of daily habits and of contacts between communities in the region. One aim of the project is to find out how far Punic influence reached into the town's planning, houses and defences. Punic is the name for the culture of the Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, whose main city was Carthage.
The Numidians lived west of Carthage, across much of what is now Algeria and part of Tunisia. Much of their history comes from Greek and Roman writers who saw them from outside. Their best-known king, Masinissa, sided with Rome at the battle of Zama in 202 BC.
The project is called In Search of the Origins of Numidian Civilization. It studies how Numidian societies formed during the first millennium BC. It also asks how they related to the Phoenician-Punic world, above all Carthage and Utica.
Found by roadworks, never reoccupied
Sidi Saïd was found by accident. Work to widen the GP4 national road between El Fahs and Siliana cut into the southern edge of the settlement. This forced a rescue excavation from December 2017 to April 2018, led by Touihri and Mounir Torchani.
That dig revealed a fairly complex town layout and a defensive wall. Both were provisionally dated to the middle of the first millennium BC. The buildings were very well preserved.
Unlike most pre-Roman settlements in Tunisia, Sidi Saïd was not reoccupied in Roman times or in late antiquity. This makes it easier to tell which remains belong to which period. By contrast, the team's earlier site at Althiburos, in El Kef province, was lived in for about 2,000 years.
The 2025 and 2026 seasons have refined the dates. The structures show that the settlement was in use from the second half of the 5th century BC to the end of the 3rd century BC.
The 2026 season also continued a survey of the surrounding area that began in 2025. The survey covers a pre-Roman burial ground with at least 85 monuments so far. ICAC has not said what kind of monuments they are, and exploration of the site continues.
Many questions remain open. The team has not yet found public buildings such as temples or community storehouses, which are among the project's goals. Nobody knows how large the settlement was or how many people lived there.
According to ICAC, a violent episode ended life at Sidi Saïd at the end of the 3rd century BC. That places it during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) between Rome and Carthage. The team has not linked the two, and the episode still has to be dated precisely.
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