The Necropolis of Kerkouane is an ancient burial site located about 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) northwest of the Punic city of Kerkouane in northeastern Tunisia. The necropolis includes a group of vaults built into a seaside hill, four main chamber tombs, and a surrounding area where people were buried. In 1985, UNESCO declared Kerkouane and its necropolis a World Heritage Site because the remains are the only surviving example of a Phoenicio-Punic city.

The necropolis was discovered in 1929 by a local Islamic schoolteacher. He found many buried items in the tombs, including some valuable objects, which he sold to treasure hunters and collectors. Items sold included jewelry, pottery, and scarab gems. Many other items, such as funerary objects and large pottery, were too heavy to move and were either left in the tombs or broken. The discovery was not officially recorded until later, after the schoolteacher told a law officer about his source of wealth.

More excavations have been done by historians and archaeologists since then. Many items found were not valuable and had been left behind after the schoolteacher’s actions and later looters. These items included bones, eggs, altars, amulets, bronze coins, razors, toiletries, obsidian and basalt relics, and earrings. Some exceptions include an ancient Greek signet ring, a jasper scarab showing an Egyptian god with animal features, and a set of rare perfume flasks, which were taken by the Fragonard museum in Grasse, France.

The most valuable find so far is a red-painted sarcophagus with a lid shaped like a woman, believed to be the goddess Astarte (Ishtar), protector of the dead, or one of her followers. The woman wears a robe and a sacred crown called a polos. She is covered in red, blue, and yellow plaster and is completely intact except for her feet. The sarcophagus is valued as one of the few remaining Punic wood carvings. It was sent to Zurich, Switzerland, for treatment soon after being found. The carved woman was called "the princess of Kerkouane" by Tunisian newspapers. The sarcophagus is now displayed in the Kerkouane site museum.