page_title: Gafsa
section_title: Ancient history
hierarchical_section_title: Gafsa / Ancient history
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Piscines dites «&#160;Termil&#160;», Gafsa This is a photo of the protected monument identified by the ID 71-4 in Tunisia.
context_page_description: Gafsa, originally called Capsa in Latin, is the capital of Gafsa Governorate of Tunisia. It lends its Latin name to the Mesolithic Capsian culture. With a population of 105,264, Gafsa is the 9th-largest Tunisian city.
context_section_description: Excavations at prehistoric sites in the Gafsa area have yielded artefacts and skeletal remains associated with the Capsian culture. This Mesolithic civilisation has been radiocarbon dated to between 10,000 and 6,000 BCE. The associated ancient population, known as the Snail eaters, are known for their extensive middens of snail shells. They are believed to be the ancestors of the modern Berbers.
  The city of Capsa belonged to King Jugurtha, who deposited his treasures there. It was captured by Gaius Marius in 106 BC and destroyed, later becoming reestablished under the Punic-style magistracy of sufetes before being granted the status of a Roman colonia. Capsa was an important city of Roman Africa near the Fossatum Africae. Roman cisterns are still evident in the city ruins
  The Vandals conquered the Roman city and ruled it until the death of Genseric (477). The Berbers then occupied it, making it the capital of a Romano-Berber kingdom until subjected to Byzantium under Justinian I (527–565). He made Capsa the capital of the province of Byzacena. The Duke of Byzacena resided there. In 540, the Byzantine governor general Solomon built a new city wall, naming the city Justiniana Capsa.
  The Arab army of Uqba ibn Nafi conquered Gafsa in 688, in spite of resistance from the Berbers. After the Arab conquest, Capsa started to lose importance, replaced by Muslim-founded Kairouan.
  Historians such as Camps and Laverde consider Gafsa the place in North Africa where African Romance last survived, until the 13th century, as a spoken language.
  Al Yacoubi reports that this time its inhabitants were considered Romanized Berber and Al-Idrissi says they continued to speak an African Latin and part of them remained faithful to the Christian religion.Gafsa ASM
caption: Romans ruins at Gafsa, 2013.
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