This Phoeni­cian city was prob­a­bly aban­doned dur­ing the First Punic War (c. 250 B.C.) and as a result was not rebuilt by the Romans. The remains con­sti­tute the only exam­ple of a Phoeni­­cio-Punic city to have sur­vived. The hous­es were built to a stan­dard plan in accor­dance with a sophis­ti­cat­ed notion of town plan­ning.