Shared heritage, central of
local culture in Bled Friguia (Tunisia)
A trip within a Mediterranean
trilogy: olive, vine and wheat
According to Magon, (the father of husbandry as a rural
science) the Carthaginians grew wheat
and barley, vine, olive, and fruit trees, and reared horses, mules and oxen,
but favored fruit trees and breeding.
Magon’s treatise in twenty-eight books, includes practical indications on
pre-Roman agriculture and bears witness about the growth of the rural economy.
Country of cereals, Tunisia ancient Africa, has also well
deserved its very flattering nickname assigned by ancients: Granary of Rome. Pliny recorded that the
soil of Africa ' was adapted for grain’ The ‘Empire of Ceres’, providing Rome with
wheat and barley.
Tunisian wheat has a great
gustative and continues to those days giving to the Italian pasta, the prestige
that has acquired all along its history.
It's the durum wheat, that when ground, gives semolina for making couscous,
the Tunisian’s emblematic traditional dish.
The most cultivated kind of
wheat in Tunisia is called Gamah, particularly in the north, in lands of
Beja, Bled friguia (territory of Bled Friguia) …. The soft wheat or farina, is a recent
introduction (nineteenth century) and it’s used mainly as breadmaking trade.
The territory of Bled Friguia
is located in the North-west of Tunisia, between the northern coast of the
country and the prosperous valley of the Majerda, in Arabic: واد مجردا
known as Bagrada in ancient times. It’s also a strategic river in North Africa, it
was fought over and settled many times in history by the Berbers;
local population,
Phoenicians, Punic, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines
, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, French.
The extension of the Atlas
mountain range, characterizes these lands: the Kroumirie mountains, is
peaking at 1000 meters, and the highest Mogods reach 500 meters.
This region receives the greatest amount of precipitation and extra
supply of water from the Majerda River, was suited to agricultural development
and provides important water resources to the whole country.
The various flora, including the coastal areas, is similar to the
southern Europe plants and includes meadows, scrubland, especially oak forests
and cork oak.
The countryside is characterized by a dense hydrographic network and a
wide range of landscapes: hills covered by forests and extensive vales with
fertile alluvial soils suitable for growing wheat and barley.
The economic activities in the area were developed and deployed all
along the local network of routes. the program of Roman agricultural restructuration
of the countryside into ager and saltus, wasteland put under cultivation
(olive, vine, wheat, and fruit trees) by the distribution of plots of lands to
army veterans regulated by agrarian laws promulgated by the Antonines
and Severi and engraved on stelae
uncovered near imperial estates in Beja region.
And since the territory of Carthage itself had been declared ager publicis, domain of the Roman
people, a first wave of 6,000 Italian colonists who were settled in the Lower Majerda
Valley (Bagradas) on the initiative of the Gracchi.
Important Cities were installed surrounding these fertile lands. They
were well connected to the road networks and along the both sides of the major
axis connecting Carthage with Theveste
in the Roman Colonia of Africa Proconsularis (Tunisia).
In the Roman period, the cultivation of the olive has developed
considerably in connection with the general improvement of living conditions
and with its commercialization. The imperial initiative aimed to insure
supplying Rome with agricultural produces. The ‘booming Mediterranean olive oil
market’ had its acme thanks to a vast urban and military trade network of
agricultural products.
Nowadays, the numerous wine and oil presses and small oileries, latin
inscriptions, pottery, stonework, mausoleum, and various places of worship
(temples, churches and marabouts ..) have also been discovered last years,
strengthening the expert opinion specifically Dr. Muhamed Ben Jedou, in GIS and
Landscape Archaeology in Northern Tunisia; that at the era, the country attend its
economic heyday and an important part of the local production was
exported to the majority of
Mediterranean countries but it was also treated on site to reduce transport
costs.
The agricultural prosperity of Provincia
Africa under Pax Romana, gave
rise to important internal exchanges which developed thanks to a well-organised
road network. Several towns at crossroads grew into regional market towns
draining the agricultural produce of the countryside from a surrounding ‘zone
of influence’ or ‘territorial zone’, the Roman pagus or colonial administrative district.
From Early Antiquity the
vine was grown in North Africa, favored both by the geographical location and
the optimum conditions of soil and climate. Notably Magon’s treatise, talk
about African viticulture.
in the IV century BC. Wine-growing has insured a significant
role in the agricultural production of Africa
Proconsularis.
Pliny describes bunches of grapes that
‘exceeding the body of an infant child in size’ and explains that because of
the bitterness of African grapes, the wine was frequently sweetened with
plaster or lime. As regards quality,
according to Pliny , African ‘straw wine’ was second in rank to Cretan
wine.
Initially planted on
slopes, the vines were spread to the plains. At the end of the nineteenth
century, the recurrence of viticulture crises in France brought about the
intensification of vine-growing in North Africa cities to their ‘territorial
zones’.
The European who settled in Tunisia during the French Protectorate
(1881-1956) used the Roman precedent as a model, in particular establishing
farms on the same locations as villae
on the plains and plateau on a zone corresponding to fertile soils best suited to the cultivation of wheat
and the planting of fruit trees.
The city of Beja, is situated
on the sides of a mountain facing the greening meadows. Its white terraces and red roofs are dominated
by the imposing ruins of the old ancient fortress. Beja is among
the most important rural centre in all Tunisia, and also a centre for crafts.
At the entrance of the city, three storks,
birds associated with its famous fertile soil, that drew all the masters of the
Mediterranean, welcome visitors.
Because of the key position
of Bled Beja, leading to the roads of Tabarka, Mateur, Bizerte and Algeria, the
World War II broke the long period of peace that had known for many centuries.
On November 1942,
Commonwealth and American troops made landings in North Africa especially on
the northern hills of countryside of Beja. The Germans responded immediately by
sending a force from Sicily to northern Tunisia, that checked the Allied
advance east of Beja.
The War Cemetery contains Commonwealth
burials of this Second World War, notably from The Sidi Nsir battlefield in
Beja
The countryside remains a picturesque
town with wide horizons, a healthy climate, rich and fertile soil. Another distinctive
feature is its family life, its traditional friendliness and hospitality
towards foreigners.
The sister city of Tunisian Beja is a
Portuguese city and called also Beja. It’s a municipality which is located
in the Alentejo region.
