Hammamet

Hammamet (rear RTL الحمّامات) is a city located on the south-eastern coast of the Cape Bon at 60 kilometers at the south of Tunis.

Attached to the Governorship of Nabeul, it constitutes a municipality of 63.116 inhabitants (number which quadruples in summer) and extends on a Superficie from 3600 Hectare S. It forms with the Agglomération of Nabeul a bipolar Conurbation of 185.000 inhabitants.

It is often presented like a Seaside resort, one of principal of Tunisia. The recent development of the marina of Yasmine Hammamet reinforces the importance of tourism industry in the local economy. Indeed, famous since second half of the 20th century, the city offers to the tourists long beaches along the gulf bearing its name.

Geography

The local Relief includes/understands two small Plaine S coastal of a low altitude: a broad narrower plain in the west and in the east. These two plains finish on the sea by sandy Plage S skirting the littoral on a score of kilometers. In the North-West, in the back-country, draw up a series of Colline S dominating the city and whose culminating point hardly exceeds 250 meters.

The core of Hammamet is consisted its Médina (measuring approximately 200 m out of 200 m). In the west is the Kasbah and, in north, the Place of the martyrs where a monument resembling the Eiffel Tower is and which points out the martyrs of the war of independence. This last form the center of modern Hammamet. From there the 2 main axes leave the city: the avenue Habib Bourguiba and the avenue of the Republic. The modern center of Hammamet (restaurants and services) is around these two axes.

The tourist area divides, starting from the center, in two sections: smallest and older (Northern Hammamet) is spread out towards Nabeul and largest and more recent (Yasmine Hammamet), located at several kilometers in the west, is spread out in direction of Bouficha. With 3 kilometers of the center an arts center is (in the old villa of the Rumanian billionaire George Sebastian) which shelters each summer the International festival of Hammamet.

History

Antiquity

With the punic time, the area is not long in becoming one of the most fertile parts of the Carthaginian agricultural domain. With the Roman domination appears an urban center: Pupput. Under the Romans, she experiences a remarkable development: of simple Vicus, it reaches the honorary row of colony ( Colonia Aurelia Commoda ) under the reign of the emperor Commode between 185 and 192 (within the framework of the romanisation of the Africa). Quoted of Byzacène, it is with the crossroads of two road axes: one connects the Eastern coast to the cereal plain of Thuburbo Majus and the other share of Carthage and skirts the littoral until Leptis Magna (current Libya). Consequently, the city enjoys the Roman municipal institutions and avoids monuments characteristic of the Roman city.

But “most of the site to lie from now on under the foundations of large the Hôtel S which invade the coast. The rare archaeological vestiges safeguarded by the National institute of archeology and art cannot in no case to give an idea, even very approximate, general topography of the site. ” Among these vestiges appear of the water conveyances, the tanks, the residences and other buildings Pavé S in general of mosaic but especially of the Roman Thermes which justify the current name of the city - become under Arabic hammamet who is the plural of Hammam - which corresponds to the use that the Romans had made since Antiquity and that continued after them the successive inhabitants. They attest degree of civilization that this city reaches at its time. The recent discovery, on the site of Pupput, of largest the Nécropole Roman of Africa mitigates the scarcity of the texts and clarifies one day new the past of the city.

The Middle Ages

In 678, with the Arab conquest of the Good course, Pupput overlooked by the Arab sources: the unused city falls in ruin. The Arab , for considerations of order geostrategic, prefer the site to him of current the médina which is on a small course in the north of Pupput. The Arab name of Hammamet is mentioned for the first time by the Arab geographer Al Idrissi at the 12th century in a work which it would have composed towards 1154 on order of the Norman king Roger II of Sicily. It presents it like a fort or castle (Ksar): “With the course of El Hammamat a castle built on a headland is which advances in the sea with approximately a thousand. ” This fort, whose construction would go back to the years 893 - 914 belongs to a series of Ribat S similar having for role to defend the littoral of the Razzia S. It is probable that Hammamet would have been used as littoral outpost until in 1186 - 1187, date on which the city is destroyed pitilessly by the banu Ghaniya come from the Balearic Islands. An urban center develops around this fort, with the foundation of part of the Mosquée in XIIe century, at one critical time of the history of the Ifriqiya: invasion Norman added to the invasion hilalienne and the collapse of the state ziride. As from the 13th century, it does not act more than one fort but of a city. A traveller Morocco Ain speaks, in 1289, of the small town of Hammamet and his ramparts bleached with the lime. Under the Hafsides, one hastens to build the Rempart S of the city - which would have been completed about the middle of XIIIe century - to reinforce the defensive reinforcement of the littoral. One in addition orders to complete the construction of the Large mosque of Hammamet. The two monuments, like so much of others, are built out of materials taken on the close ancient sites. The city takes a certain importance then and becomes the place of residence of the Cadi. Moreover, it seems that the city knows, per moments, a relative economic prosperity which partly explains the incursions and the keen attacks whose it is the object throughout the 14th century on behalf of the Pirate S pisans and Catalan. The few fortifications and restorations of which it profits with the XIV {{E}} and XV {{E}} centuries, in fact the consolidation of the ramparts and the construction of the kasbah on the site of a fort dating from XIIe century, cannot put an end to these fatal incursions and raids.

At the 16th century, its decline is accentuated: “She is inhabited, according to Leon the African, by very poor people. All are fishing, Batelier S, coalmen and launderers of fabrics. This city is imposed so much by the kings who the poor people are almost Mendiant S.” Prey trying, she suffers from now on competitions from two new Masters of the Mediterranean: Othoman and Spanish . The latter end up being essential: the city is conquered and the population sudden of the atrocities because of its neutrality in the hispano-Turkish competition.

Modern time

Following the conquest of 1574, the city is entrusted to Othomans. The Janissaire S settle in the kasbah and the number of Othomans, origin or adoption, increases regularly. Vis-a-vis this minority privileged, the population hammamétoise is relegated to the second plan. But this phenomenon does not last because the Othomans are subject to the influence of the indigenous population deeply and are quickly comparable: the appearance of Kouloughlis, resulting from unions between Othomans and women of the country, is at the origin of this assimilation. Hammamet also suffers from competition between the Christian States and regencies Barbaresques: this one been the subject of 2 famous raids operated by the fleet about the knights of Malta (in 1602 and 1605). “In spite of a been obstinated resistance where the women are distinguished and who costs the life 300 inhabitants, the Christians seize the city and raise the banner of the order on the principal mosque. ” Thus, the first forwarding is a success for the knights but the population takes its revenge during the second forwarding which is a resounding failure for the Ordre of Malta. Since, the name of Hammamet, disfigured in the Latin languages in Maometta, Mahomette and even Emmamette, becomes famous in Western Europe. With the Andalusian surge of Taken refuge S driven out of Spain at the beginning of the 17th century, the market-gardening Agriculture and the Arboriculture knows a remarkable revival during XVIIe and XVIII {{E}} centuries. Hussein I Bey, founder of the Dynasty husseinite, visit the city in 1727 and orders the construction of a new mosque and the restoration of the Large mosque and ramparts of the médina. Under Hammouda Bey, the Artisanat Textile makes remarkable great strides. But the 19th century is one period of difficulties during which the population becomes more and more victim of the tax puncture of the beys and of the European pressure.

Contemporary time

In 1881, the city is conquered without much resistance by the frank Company of Tunisia placed under the orders of the commander Bordering Désiré. Come to conquer Hammamet, Bordier is conquered in its turn by the magic of the places and there fixes its residence and its last residence. From now on, the city undergoes the shock of modernity: the médina with its various poles and structures gradually marginalizes with the profit of a new urban core extra muros. The city inaugurates several urban conveniences: Railroad (1899), electricity, Telephone, French school, catholic church (1884), etc With the creation of the municipality in 1942, other conveniences are introduced. Famous for its Lemon-yellow S, Hammamet remains with Nabeul (until in 1930) the first agrumicole zone of the country. Many writer-travellers searches of them primarily Exotisme and of Pittoresque describe and sing the beauty of Hammamet by the image and the text, contributing thus to re-elected city. Consequently Hammamet becomes a station of winter holiday strong appraisal and attended already enough at the beginning of the XXe century. The great painter Paul Klee, at the time of his passage to Hammamet in 1914, is dazzled by his light, his colors, and his forms. By discovering it, he writes: “I understood by discovering this small village of fishermen whom art does not return the visible one but that it makes visible. ”. Before the First World War, August Macke, Gustave Flaubert, Guy of Maupassant, Andre Gide and Oscar Wilde is also allured by the city. Following the crash of Wall Street in 1929, a Rumanian billionaire, Georges Sebastian, discovers Hammamet and made there build a villa of dream. It invites his friends there. Allured by the charm of the place, some acquire small houses in the médina and transform them with their taste whereas others prefer to build in the countryside of sumptuous villas imitating the style arabo-Moslem of the Sebastian villa.

Hammamet then attracts other celebrities such Jean Cocteau, Wallis Simpson and the duke of Windsor. The Second world war puts at hard test the population hammamétoise. The palate of Sebastian is requisitioned in 1943 by the marshal Rommel which installs its general headquarter there. During the war, other celebrities of passage attend the places such Winston Churchill, the generals Von Arnim, Montgomery and Eisenhower and the king George VI.

After the war, Hammamet becomes again an haven of peace and accommodates time with others of the prestigious hosts such Bettino Craxi, Sophia Loren or Frederic Mitterrand. Hammamet becomes thus a true cosmopolitan city preparing the conditions of the tourist development after independence (1956). As for Sebastian, not wishing to return in its house, it sells it at the Tunisian State in 1962. This one transforms it into arts center, whose Théâtre in the open air, added inside the gardens of the villa in 1964, accommodates each summer the International festival of Hammamet, the second of Tunisia after that of Carthage.

During following decades, tourism of mass involves creation then the extension of the zone Hôtel ière. The absence of policy of coherent Urbanization, the lack of respect of the inheritance, the architectural style Kitsch appreciated by the Tunisian Middle-class and the pressure of bottom-of-the-range tourism involved a very significant degradation of the site.

Twinnings

External bond

Ridha Kéfi, “international Arts center of Hammamet. Dar Sebastian”, '' Tunisian Saisons ''

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