Ténès (; from Berber TNS 'camping') is a town in

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

located around 200 kilometers west of the capital

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

. , it has a population of 65,000 people.

History

Ténès was founded as a

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n port in or before the 8th centuryBC. As with other Phoenician harbors, it fell under the hegemony of

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, 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 classic ...

around the 6th centuryBC and of the Romans after the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...

. Its

Punic The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' ...

name was Latinized as Cartenna or

Cartennae Cartennae or Cartenna.. was an ancient Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian and Roman Empire, Roman port at present-day Ténès, Algeria. Under the Romans, it was part of the Roman province, province of Mauretania Caesariensis. Name Cartenna's nam ...

, a plural which suggested the existence of a separate

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 ...

settlement nearby.

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

mentions that the local tribes were known as the "Bakoyta". The city rose to colony status under the

empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

. It was sacked by the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

during their conquest of

Roman North Africa Africa was a Roman province on the northern coast of the continent of Africa. It was established in 146 BC, following the Roman Republic's conquest of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisi ...

. Reconquered by the Byzantines and then taken by the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member o ...

, it disappeared except for a mostly ruined fortification. Medieval Ténès was founded by

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...

in the 9th century;

Al-Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī (), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1094) was an Arab Andalusian historian and a geographer of the Muslim West. Life Al-Bakri was born in Huelva, the ...

dates it to 875 or 876 (262 AH). They established their base from the former settlement. They invited settlers from

Elvira Elvira is a female given name. It is believed to have first been recorded in medieval Spain, while other sources claim that it is likely of Germanic ( Gothic) origin. In the Balkans, Elvira is popular among Bosniaks, Croats, and Slovenes in the ...

and

Murcia Murcia ( , , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the Ranked lists of Spanish municipalities#By population, seventh largest city i ...

but many left owing to outbreaks of fever among the new settlers. They were replaced by Berbers from Suk Ibrahim on the Chelif. The city prospered in spite of an unhealthy climate owing to the fertility of the surrounding countryside, which produced fruit and grain in relative abundance. A local dynasty claiming descent from Ali prospered for a time. They recognized as their overlords the Umayyads, who treated the town as a kind of prison camp for exiles. After the 10th century, it passed in succession under

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

Sanhaja The Sanhaja (, or زناگة ''Znāga''; , pl. Iẓnagen, and also Aẓnaj, pl. Iẓnajen) were once one of the largest Berbers, Berber tribal confederations, along with the Zenata, Zanata and Masmuda confederations. Many tribes in Algeria, Libya ...

Maghrawa The Maghrawa or Meghrawa () were a large Berber tribal confederation in North Africa. They are the largest branch of the Zenata confederation. Their traditional territories around the time of Muslim expansion into the Maghreb in the 7th century ...

, Almoravid,

Almohad The Almohad Caliphate (; or or from ) or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa (the Maghreb). The Almohad ...

, and Ziyanid control. In the later 15th century, it prospered amid the exodus of Moors from the War of Granada. The locals overthrew the last of its foreign rulers and established a local

sheikh Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning "elder (administrative title), elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim ulama, scholar. Though this title generally refers to me ...

, whose dynasty was eventually compelled to become vassals of

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Ténès was sacked by

Oruç Reis Aruj Barbarossa ( 1474 – 1518), known as Oruç Reis () to the Turks, was an Ottoman corsair who became Sultan of Algiers. The elder brother of the famous Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, he was born on the Ottoman island of Midilli (L ...

in 1517 and conquered for the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

by his brother

Hayreddin Barbarossa Hayreddin Barbarossa (, original name: Khiḍr; ), also known as Hayreddin Pasha, Hızır Hayrettin Pasha, and simply Hızır Reis (c. 1466/1483 – 4 July 1546), was an Ottoman corsair and later admiral of the Ottoman Navy. Barbarossa's ...

a few years later. The town was given a garrison but its economic life gradually collapsed, with its European trade in grain gone by the 18th century. Berber revolts sacked the city and attempted to overthrow Ottoman rule on several occasions. Following the French invasion of Algiers in 1830, Ténès fell under the control of the Emir Abdelkader, who tried to revive its port. The locals finally surrendered to the French without a fight in 1843. Bugeaud then used it as a base to control the Chelif Valley. Mistaken accounts in the ancient geographers originally caused the French to assume ancient Cartennae had been at

Mostaganem Mostaganem () is a port city in and capital of Mostaganem (province), Mostaganem province, in the northwest of Algeria. The city, founded in the 11th century lies on the Gulf of Arzew, Mediterranean Sea and is 72 km ENE of Oran. It is consi ...

, but engravings were soon discovered by archaeologists which established the correct identification. Modern Ténès was established at the ruins of the Phoenician and Roman colony by the French in 1847. Its harbor about 1.5 km distant originally served as a port for goods from the Chelif, but declined following the construction of the Algiers–Oran railway..

Present

At the present time Ténès is a small tourist town with five small hotels, two hospitals, a local museum, a port and a lighthouse. It has some antique sites such as the Phoenician and Roman tombs, the prehistoric caves in Sidi Merouane, the Great Mosque of Sidi Ahmed Boumazahttp://www.boumazasofi.jeeran.com (built some 11 centuries ago), Bab El Bahr, Notre Dame de Ténès, The French cannons, along with many others.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links