Cartennas

Cartennas, also known as Cartenna and Cartennae, was a Roman colonia in Mauretania Caesariensis. It is now called Ténès in modern Algeria.

History

Cartennas was an ancient city that already existed in the eighth century BC, and was then called "Cartinna" or "Kartenna". The plural form "Cartennae", used in addition to the singular "Cartenna" (feminine) or "Cartennas" (masculine), suggests two cities, an ancient Berber and a dependence port of the Phoenicians: the first at the wadi Allal just 1.5 km from its mouth, while the second near the Mediterranean sea. Cartennas was first a Phoenician and later a Carthaginian city.

After 150 BC, Cartennas was dominated by the Romans. Emperor Augustus in 30 BC established there a colony of veterans of the Legio II Augusta and the city started to grow in importance. Augustus even founded in what is now coastal Algeria the following Roman colonies: Igilgili, Saldae, Tubusuctu, Rusazu, Rusguniae, Aquae Calidae, Zuccabar and Gunugu. All these colonies were connected to Cartennas in a military way with strong commercial links. When the French conquered the area in the 1830s they confused Cartennas with Mostaganem, 50 km to the west, but the discovery of epitaphs -a few years later- in the Berber-Arab village of Tenes helped solve the mistake.