cothon
English
editEtymology
editFrom Ancient Greek κώθων (kṓthōn), rendering a Phoenician term meaning something like "excavated". (Cothon was the name of the island in Carthage's artificial harbor, namesake of the type.)
Noun
editcothon (plural cothons)
- An artificial, protected harbor in a Phoenician city, especially and originally the one in Carthage.
- 1965, Helen Hill Miller, Sicily and the Western Colonies of Greece, New York: Scribner:
- The cothons at Carthage, during the Punic wars, are said to have held over two hundred ships. The small size of the Motya cothon may be accounted for by […]
- 1973, Rivista Di Studi Fenici, volume 1, page 142:
- Cothons - artificial inner harbours, or perhaps rather docks and repair basins - are another architectural feature ascribed to Phoenician and Punic towns […]
- 1999, Ancient Infrastructure: Remarkable Roads, Mines, Walls, Mounds, Stone Circles : a Catalog of Archeological Anomalies:
- It resembles the Phoenician cothons'.