Regarding Ancient Carthage, does anyone know what kind of transportation they used, other than ships?

Question

For example, did they use sedan chairs, chariots, carriages etc.?

Answer 1

The simple (but unhelpful) answer to your question is: -

No. Apart from ships, nobody really does know exactly what other kinds of transportation the ancient Carthaginians used. Because there are absolutely no records on this topic, the best that we can do is to make educated guesses based on ‘What?’ and ‘Where?’ the Carthaginians needed their transport for.

So, here are my conclusions, based on the sparse information in the books listed at the foot of these notes: -

[1] Ships were by far the most important means of transport for Carthage. The state’s entire wealth was built on trade, and especially on its monopoly of sea trade routes in the western Mediterranean. But land-based transport was needed to get trade goods (and a few important people) to and from the ships.

[2] Let’s dispose of Elephants immediately! The war elephants used by Hannibal were African elephants. Unlike Indian elephants, the African variety cannot be reliably trained as beasts of burden. At most, Carthaginian elephants might very occasionally have been used (with chains attached) to drag aside heavy obstacles like tree trunks from roads and paths.

[3] The Carthaginians maintained the old Phoenician tradition of building proper stone-paved roads, not just relying on muddy tracks. They built roads so that, at least in the main settled areas under their control, wheeled transport could be used year-round. Most of this transport would have been simple two-wheeled carts, carrying goods, drawn by oxen. There would also have been a few horse-drawn passenger carriages for VIPs.

[4] Ox-Cart transport would not have been much use off the road network. For those conditions, the Carthaginians would have used: camels and donkeys in North Africa; mules and donkeys in Spain. To some extent, horses may have been used for goods transport in all regions, but horses lack stamina as pack animals compared with those other beasts.

[5] And don’t forget slaves as porters for goods. Like all other contemporary states, Carthage relied heavily on slaves for its heavy work – including transport.

[6] Litters (sedan chairs) carried by slaves would have been the preferred method of VIP travel within the congested, narrow, and often stepped streets of Carthaginian cities. Outside the cities, those same VIPs would have been on horseback, or in the horse-drawn carriages already mentioned.

[7] If used at all (the Carthaginians did not use them in war), chariots would have been purely ceremonial vehicles.

Answer 2

First of all, yes they were mostly a seafaring peoples as they were decedents of the Phoenicians and it was more convenient for them, but for more modes of transportation I would take a guess that they used horses and elephants, since they were part of the military.

Answer 3

Hannibal used elephants.

And the general public - probably donkeys and donkey carts.
If they were going off towards the north African desert, probably horses and camels - like the Berbers. Probably palanquins as well.