Discovery of the first Roman port district in Morocco, dating back to the 2nd century AD

A team of Moroccan archaeologists and researchers have discovered the first Roman-era port quarter in Morocco, a historic building dating from between the 1st and 2nd century AD located in the historic site of the Chellah (ancient Roman city and necropolis) in Rabat.

The port district is part of the findings that came to light with the works that have been carried out since last March in the vicinity of the ancient city of the Chellah, presented on Friday by archaeologists and the Ministry of Culture, and which, according to them, represent an important discovery of an extension of this city.

The finds also include a public thermal complex of almost 2,000 square metres (which could be the largest found in Morocco), niches representing funerary columbaria probably built at the same time, and marble sculptures such as a headless Roman statue representing a female goddess.

Aziz el Khyari, professor at the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage (INSAP), indicated during the presentation of the site that this discovery makes the Chellah one of the three most important ancient cities in Morocco.

"We only knew of five hectares of the ancient city of the Chellah, now we have a whole ancient city below us to discover over an area of 300 hectares", the archaeologist indicated during a meeting with the press at the site.

The Chellah is located near the Bouregreg river in Rabat, an enclosure dating back to the Mauretanian-Roman period between the 2nd century BC and the 6th century AD. Today it is surrounded by ramparts dating from the Marinid period (13th century) and is one of the Moroccan capital's tourist destinations.

Excavations carried out in recent months in the vicinity of the Chellah and near the left bank of the Buregreg led to the discovery of a part of the port quarter in which the remains of altars and shrines were also found.

Khyari said that the forthcoming excavations are intended to uncover the ancient port of the city of Sala, which probably dates back to the 1st century AD.

"We have never identified such a port before. This indicates that this ancient maritime city was open to Mediterranean trade and received imports from Greece, the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere," said the archaeologist.

For his part, Moroccan Culture Minister Mehdi Bensaid described the discovery as "very important and impressive", adding that his department aims to increase the number of tourist visits to the Chellah to one million a year (instead of 500,000 at present).