Djinet (Arabic: جنّات ''Jannāt''), the classical Cissi, is a port town and commune in the

Bordj Menaïel District Bordj Ménaïel is a district in Boumerdès Province, Algeria. It was named after its capital, Bordj Menaïel. Municipalities The district is further divided into 4 municipalities: *Bordj Menaïel * Djinet * Leghata *Zemmouri Villages The vill ...

of Boumerdès Province,

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, east of the mouth of the Isser River and around Cape Djinet. As of 2008, the population of the municipality is 21,966. The town is particularly notable for its power plant and accompanying desalination unit. A fishing port recently built there, originally scheduled to open in 2007, became fully operational only in 2016 due to problems with sand accumulation.

History

Djinet was a

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...

n and

Carthaginian The term Carthaginian ( la, Carthaginiensis ) usually refers to a citizen of Ancient Carthage. It can also refer to: * Carthaginian (ship), a three-masted schooner built in 1921 * Insurgent privateers; nineteenth-century South American privateers, ...

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

under the name Kissi or Kishi ( xpu, 𐤊𐤔 , , if Lipiński's interpretation of an inscription found there is accepted) The name was

hellenized Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in the ...

as ''Kissḗ''. After the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146BC fought between Roman Republic, Rome and Ancient Carthage, Carthage. Three conflicts between these states took place on both land and sea across the western Mediterranean region and i ...

, it fell under

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

control. Its name was Latinized as Cissi and it was placed into the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

Mauretania Caesariensis Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for "Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had been part of the Kingd ...

. It appeared on the '' Tabula Peutingeriana''.J. Ferron, v. ''Cissi'', i
''Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques''
vol. XII, Parigi 1953, coll. 851-852 The ruins of a 4th or 5th-century Christian church could still be easily distinguished at Cape Djinet up to the 19th century, but little trace now remains. After 484, it disappears from written sources for several centuries, including the 7th-8th century

Muslim conquest of the Maghreb The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb ( ar, الْفَتْحُ الإسلَامِيُّ لِلْمَغرِب) continued the century of rapid Muslim conquests following the death of Muhammad in 632 and into the Byzantine-controlled territories of ...

, only to reappear in the 11th century work of al-Idrisi under the new name of ''Jannād'', after a

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

tribe then living in the area. It was known to medieval European geographers as ''Berengereto''. By the 18th century, Djinet was a small port town serving the farmers of the surrounding lowlands, described by

Thomas Shaw Thomas Shaw is the name of: Politicians * Tom Shaw (politician) (1872–1938), British trade unionist and Labour Party politician * Thomas Shaw (Halifax MP) (1823–1893), English Liberal politician, MP for Halifax * Thomas Shaw, 1st Baron Craigmy ...

in the following terms: : ...we come to the little port of Jinnett, from which a great quantity of grain is shipped off yearly to Christendom. Jinnett is a small creek, with tolerably good anchoring grounds before it; and was probably Edrisi's Mers' el Dajaje, or ''Port of Hens''. I was told that Jinnett, or ''Paradise'', was given to this place, on account of a row-boat, which was once very providentially conducted within the creek, when the mariners expected every moment to have perished upon the neighbouring rocks. The area was conquered by France in 1837 in the wake of the

First Battle of the Issers The First Battle of the Issers in May 1837, during the French conquest of Algeria, pitted the troupes coloniales under General Perrégaux and Colonel Schauenburg against the troops of Kabylia of the ''Igawawen''. Background The ceasefire si ...

, and remained under French rule until Algeria's independence in 1962. In 1986, a gas-powered thermal power plant was commissioned at Djinet, manufactured by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

with a capacity of 704 MW.

Ecclesiastical history

Roman Cissi was a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

bishopric,

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictiona ...

to the

metropolitan Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a typ ...

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

. The names of two of its bishops are known: * At a

Conference of Carthage (411) The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, assembled under the presidency of Cyprian ...

between Catholic and schismatic Donatist bishops, where their heresy was condemned as such, Cissi was represented only by a Donatist bishop named Flavosus. The

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

adjective referring to Cissi, ''Cissitanus'', is applied to him in the account of that conference. In the 19th century, Morcelli took the adjective ''Cessitanus'' to refer to Cissi, and supposed instead that the name of the Cissi bishop at the conference was Quodvultdeus, whom Ferron rather attributed to the see of

Cissita Cissita was a town and bishopric of Roman North Africa, which only remains as a Catholic titular see. History Cissita was located about 36°54'04"N 10°2' 9.96"W and has been tentatively identified with ruins near Sidi T(h)abet, 24 kilometers ...

, which was in Africa Proconsularis and presently in

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

(Sidi-Tabet?). * In 484, Bishop Reparatus of Cissi was one of the Catholic bishops whom the

Arian Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...

king Huneric of the Vandal Kingdom summoned to Carthage and then exiled like most Catholic bishops.Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, p. 138 The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

titular bishopric of Cissi ( la, dioecesis Cissitana). Its bishops have been: * Jean de Capistran Aimé Cayer, OFM (1949.06.17 – 1978.04.13) *

Augusto Vargas Alzamora Augusto Vargas Alzamora S.J. (9 November 1922 – 4 September 2000) was a Cardinal Priest and Archbishop of Lima in the Roman Catholic Church. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1940. He studied at the Jesuit Philosophical Faculty in San Migu ...

, SJ (1978.06.08 – 1989.12.30) * Olindo Natale Spagnolo Martellozzo, MCCJ (1990.02.02 – 2008.07.23) * Enrique Eguía Seguí (2008.09.04 to present), Auxiliary Bishop of

Archdiocese of Buenos Aires The Archdiocese of Buenos Aires (''Archidioecesis Bonaerensis'') is one of thirteen Latin Metropolitan archdioceses of the Catholic Church in Argentina, South America. The Archbishopric of Buenos Aires is the Primatial see (protocollary first-r ...

Transport

Djinet is connected to the rest of the country through a single main road: RN 24, a coastal road leading to

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...

in the west (via

Zemmouri Zemmouri is a town and commune in the Bordj Menaïel District of Boumerdès Province, Algeria. As of 2008, the population of the municipality is 26,408. Villages The villages of the commune of ''Zemmouri'' are: History The coastal site of Zem ...

) and Bejaia in the east (via Dellys).

Notable people

References

Citations

Bibliography

GCatholic - (former &) titular bishopric
* . * . * . {{coord, 36, 53, N, 3, 43, E, display=title, region:DZ_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Communes of Boumerdès Province Phoenician colonies in Algeria