Archeological site of Neapolis, Nabeul

Neapolis is a Tunisian archaeological site located on the coast, two kilometers southwest of the center of the city of Nabeul.

Neapolis is considered one of the rare cities of the Maghreb to bear a Greek name; it is moreover quoted as early as the 5th century BC in the texts of Thucydides. It is also the oldest city mentioned after Carthage and the same texts confirm its importance during the Punic period, before its destruction by Lucius Calpurnius Piso in 148 BC.

The city was elevated to the rank of colony under Caesar or Augustus. Until the 5th century, some inscriptions still testify to its economic prosperity. The last data on the city are related to the attestation of the bishops until 646. This economic prosperity was mainly based on the production of a condiment very appreciated by the Romans and elaborated from fish, the garum. The city has particularly suffered the consequences of a major earthquake that caused a tidal wave that submerged in July 365 a whole part of the city whose remains were discovered in 2017 by an Italian-Tunisian archaeological mission.

It is only in the XIIth century that Al Idrissi mentions the existence of an "old Nabeul" reduced to ruins a few kilometers from the new city.

During his trip to the regency of Tunis, Victor Guérin noted several inscriptions on pedestals including Col Iul Neap. The first excavations carried out in 1965 made it possible to release an industrial unit of the Roman time for the manufacture of the garum, as well as a district of dwelling with houses paved with superb mosaics of which some are preserved on the spot and others exposed to the museum of Nabeul. A program of development of the site is undertaken from 1996 to 2002 by the National Institute of Heritage and the Agency of development of the heritage and cultural promotion: it consists in restoring the layout of the walls, the coverage of the porticos of the galleries of the basins of salting, the repair of the paving of the decumanus as well as the opening of a new room in the museum of Nabeul devoted to the site.