Tunisia

Tunisia stamps available at Io Collezionista. Tunisia, because of its position in the Mediterranean, was influenced over the centuries by many cultures, from the Berber to the Phoenician, Roman and Arab. With the defeat of Carthage in 146 BC the area remained under Roman control, and that of their successors after the fall of the Empire, for almost eight centuries. The handover came towards the end of the 8th century, when Tunisia was conquered by the Arabs. What the Romans called the Province of Africa thus became Ifriqiya, a term used before the conquest as well: it is worth noting that both words would later be used to denote the whole African continent. The cultural influence of the Middle East would strengthen in the following centuries with annexation to the Ottoman Empire in the middle of the 16th century, which gave way to the French in 1881.