Tunisia – History of Tunisia Series – Masinissa
1969 Proof Silver Dinar 40mm (21.25 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.5948 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 293
Certification: NGC  PF 66 ULTRA CAMEO 2863756-008
الحبيب برقيبة HABIB BOURGUIBA 1969 PRESIDENT DE LA REP. TUNISIENNE رئيس الجمهورية التونسية , Bourguiba facing left.
MASINISSA دينار 1 DINAR, Stylized armored figure with shield, Masinissa facing left.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Masinissa, or Masensen, (c.238 BC – 148 BC) also spelled Massinissa and Massena was the first King of Numidia.

During his younger years, before he was king, he fought in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), first against the Romans as an ally of Carthage and later switching sides (206 BC). With Roman support, he united the eastern and western Numidian tribes and founded the Kingdom of Numidia. He is well-known for his role as a Roman ally in the Battle of Zama (202 BC) and as husband of Sophonisba, a Carthaginian noblewoman whom he allowed to poison herself to avoid being paraded in a triumph in Rome.

He ruled Numidia for some 54 years until dying at about the age of 90. He was vigorous, leading troops until his death and fathering some 44 sons, and a staunch ally of Rome.

Masinissa’s story is told in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (written c. 27-25 BC). He is also featured in Cicero’s Scipio’s Dream.

His name was found in his tomb of Cirta, modern-day Constantine in Algeria under the form of MSNSN (which has to be read as Mas’n’sen, which means “Their Lord”).

The Greek historian Polybius, who met him, called him “the best man of all the kings of our time”. and wrote that “his greatest and most divine achievement was this: Numidia had been before his time universally unproductive, and was looked upon as incapable of producing any cultivated fruits. He was the first and only man who showed that it could produce cultivated fruits just as well as any other country”. In the following centuries, his territory would become known as the breadbasket of Rome.

Masinissa is largely viewed as an icon and an important forefather among modern Berbers.
 

Habib Ben Ali Bourguiba (3 August 1903 – 6 April 2000) was a Tunisian lawyer, nationalist leader and statesman who led the country from 1956 to 1987 as Prime minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia (1956-57) then as the first President of Tunisia (1957-87). Prior to his presidency, he led the nation to independence from France, ending the 75 year-old protectorate and earning the title of “Supreme Combatant”.

Born in Monastir to a poor family, he attended Sadiki College then Lycée Carnot in Tunis, before obtaining his baccalaureate in 1924. He graduated from the University of Paris in 1927 and returned to Tunis to practice law. In the early 1930s, he became involved in anti-colonial and Tunisian national politics, joining the Destour party and co-founding the Neo Destour in 1934. He rose as a key figure of the independence movement and was repeatedly arrested by the colonial administration. His involvement in the riots of 9 April 1938 resulted in his exile to Marseille during World War II.

In 1945, Bourguiba was released and moved to Cairo, Egypt, to seek the support of the Arab League. He returned to the country in 1949 and rose to prominence as the leader of the national movement. Although initially committed to peaceful negotiations with the French government, he had an effective role in the armed unrest that started in 1952 when they proved to be unsuccessful. He was arrested and imprisoned on La Galite Island for two years, before being exiled in France. There, he led negotiations with Prime minister Pierre Mendès France and obtained internal autonomy agreements in exchange for the end of the unrest. Bourguiba returned victorious to Tunis on June 1, 1955, but was challenged by Salah Ben Youssef in the party leadership. Ben Youssef and his supporters disagreed with Bourguiba’s “soft” policies and demanded full independence of the Maghreb. This resulted in a civil war that opposed Bourguibists, who favored a stepwise policy and modernism, and Youssefists, the conservative Arab nationalist supporters of Ben Youssef. The conflict ended with the Sfax Congress of 1955 in favor of Bourguiba.

Following the country’s independence in 1956, Bourguiba was appointed prime minister by king Muhammad VIII al-Amin and acted as De facto ruler before proclaiming the Republic, on 25 July 1957. He was elected interim President of Tunisia by parliament until the ratification of the Constitution. During his rule, he implemented a strong education system, worked on developing the economy, supported gender equality and proclaimed a neutral foreign policy, making him an exception among Arab leaders. The main reform that was passed was the Code of Personal Status which settled a modern society. He set a strong presidential system which turned to be a twenty-year one-party state dominated by his own, the Socialist Destourian Party. A cult of personality also developed around him, before he proclaimed himself president for life in 1975, during his fourth 5 year-term.

The end of his 30 year-rule was marked by his declining health, a war of succession, and the rise of clientelism and Islamism. On 7 November 1987, he was removed from power by his prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and kept under house arrest in a residence in Monastir. He remained there to his death and was buried in a mausoleum he had previously built.

Tunisia (Arabic: تونس‎  Tūnis; Berber: Tunes, ⵜⵓⵏⴻⵙ; French: Tunisie), officially the Republic of Tunisia, (Arabic: الجمهورية التونسية‎  al-Jumhūrīya at-Tūnisīya) is a sovereign state in Northwest Africa, covering 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 square miles). Its northernmost point, Cape Angela, is the northernmost point on the African continent. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia’s population was estimated to be just under 11.93 million in 2016. Tunisia’s name is derived from its capital city, Tunis, which is located on its northeast coast.

Geographically, Tunisia contains the eastern end of the Atlas Mountains, and the northern reaches of the Sahara desert. Much of the rest of the country’s land is fertile soil. Its 1,300 kilometres (810 miles) of coastline include the African conjunction of the western and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin and, by means of the Sicilian Strait and Sardinian Channel, feature the African mainland’s second and third nearest points to Europe after Gibraltar.

Tunisia is a unitary semi-presidential representative democratic republic. It is considered to be the only full democracy in the Arab World. It has a high human development index. It has an association agreement with the European Union; is a member of La Francophonie, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, the OIC, the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77; and has obtained the status of major non-NATO ally of the United States. In addition, Tunisia is also a member state of the United Nations and a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Close relations with Europe – in particular with France and with Italy – have been forged through economic cooperation, privatisation and industrial modernization.

In ancient times, Tunisia was primarily inhabited by Berbers. Phoenician immigration began in the 12th century BC; these immigrants founded Carthage. A major mercantile power and a military rival of the Roman Republic, Carthage was defeated by the Romans in 146 BC. The Romans, who would occupy Tunisia for most of the next eight hundred years, introduced Christianity and left architectural legacies like the El Djem amphitheater. After several attempts starting in 647, the Muslims conquered the whole of Tunisia by 697, followed by the Ottoman Empire between 1534 and 1574. The Ottomans held sway for over three hundred years. The French colonization of Tunisia occurred in 1881. Tunisia gained independence with Habib Bourguiba and declared the Tunisian Republic in 1957. In 2011, the Tunisian Revolution resulted in the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, followed by parliamentary elections. The country voted for parliament again on 26 October 2014, and for President on 23 November 2014.