The Carthage National Museum sits at the top of Byrsa hill — the citadel of the Punic city and the centre of the later Roman one — and is the place to start if you want to understand the archaeology of ancient Carthage in context. The collection covers both the Punic period (mostly funerary stelae, pottery, masks, and jewellery from the tophet and surrounding necropolises) and the Roman period (mosaics, statuary, inscriptions, coins).
The Punic-era exhibits are the more important — most major museums elsewhere have stronger Roman collections than this, but the Carthage Museum holds the largest assemblage of Punic material in the world. The view from the hill in front of the museum, over the Bay of Tunis and the surviving structures of Roman Carthage spread out below, is one of the best in the city. The building was closed for a long renovation that was still under way as recently as 2023; check the current status before visiting.