These basins, partly natural, partly artificial, still exist;[591] but their communication with the sea is blocked up, as also is the channel which connected the military harbour with the harbours of commerce.

The remains of the ancient town are mostly beneath the surface of the soil, but modern research has uncovered a portion of them, and brought to light a certain number of ruins which belong probably to the very earliest period.

Among these are walls in the style called "Cyclopian," built of a very hard material, and more than thirty-two feet thick, which seem to have surrounded the ancient Byrsa or citadel, and which are still in places sixteen feet high.[592] The Roman walls found emplaced above these are of far inferior strength and solidity.

An extensive necropolis lies north of the ancient town, on the coast near Cape Camart.
Another early and important Phoenician settlement in these parts was Hadrumetum or Adrymes,[593] which seems to be represented by the modern Sousa.

Hadrumetum lay on the eastern side of the great Tunisian projection, near the southern extremity of a large bay which looks to the east, and is now known as the Gulf of Hammamet.