Below the Roman houses, on the lower slope of the site, lie the foundations of Phoenician tombs cut into the limestone bedrock. They belong to the earliest phase of Utica, when the town was a Phoenician trading post centuries older than Carthage.
There is not much to look at — rectangular pits, a few stone-lined chambers, a couple of recognisable lids — but they are arguably the most historically important thing on the site. Utica was founded around 1100 BC according to tradition, and these graves are part of the evidence that the Phoenicians really did reach the central Mediterranean that early.