Unique marble mask unearthed at Carthage's Tofet site in Tunisia

The Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs announced on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, a remarkable archaeological find at the Tofet site in Carthage — a marble mask depicting a woman with a Phoenician-style coiffure, described as unique and dating back to the late 4th century BC.

Carved from a block of fine marble, the mask represents a woman with a Phoenician hairstyle, a symbol of a cult style imported and integrated by the Punic elites.

According to the first hypothesis of Professor Imed Ben Jerbania, head of the excavation team at the National Heritage Institute (INP), the object would have been offered as an ex-voto —a gift intended to win the favor of the gods.

The material analysis of the marble and the residual polychromy will clarify its origin, likely the Eastern Mediterranean.

The work is part of a four-year agreement signed in March 2024 between the INP and the Agency for Heritage Promotion and Cultural Development (AMVPPC).

This partnership aims to relaunch excavations at the sanctuary and produce new scientific and tourist documentation of the site.

The team comprises Imed Ben Jerbania, Nesrine Medahi, and Kaouther Jendoubi, archaeologists specializing in iconography and votive art.

This is not the first significant revelation from the Toufet site. In 2014, a set of previously unpublished Punic inscriptions was discovered. In 2023, nine gold coins dating from the 3rd century BC, associated with aristocratic Carthaginian families, were unearthed.

The 2025 discovery of the marble mask further enriches this sequence, adding an artistic and ritual dimension to the ongoing research. These discoveries confirm the exceptional potential of the Carthaginian subsoil and place Tunisia on the map of the Mediterranean's major archaeological centers.

The Ministry of Culture hailed this find as a "unique testimony to the richness of the Punic-Carthaginian heritage".

The objective, according to its services, is now to prepare the public exhibition of the mask at the Carthage museum, after restoration and complete study, with a view to promoting tourism and education.