Location | Sidi Ali Boujenoun, Kénitra Province, Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, Morocco |
---|---|
Coordinates | 34°36′06″N06°06′56″W / 34.60167°N 6.11556°W |
Type | Settlement |
History | |
Builder | Augustus |
Founded | Between 33 and 25 BC |
Abandoned | Approximately 285 AD |
Iulia Valentia Banasa was a Roman-Berber city in northern Morocco. It was one of the three colonias in Mauretania Tingitana [1] founded by emperor Augustus between 33 and 25 BC for veterans of the battle of Actium, on top of a Mauretanian village. The site was in fact already occupied by the local Amazigh people from the 4th century BC, or perhaps earlier. [2]
Beautiful mosaics decorated the buildings and now most are shown at the Rabat archeological museum [3]
Some of the other major Roman companion cities to Iulia Valentia Banasa of this early era are Chellah and Volubilis, the latter of which shares the features of basilica and regular street pattern. [4]
Objects recovered at Banasa may be seen at the Rabat Archaeological Museum.
Rabat is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. It is also the capital city of the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra administrative region. Rabat is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the river Bou Regreg, opposite Salé, the city's main commuter town.
Mauretania is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic, encompassing northern present-day Morocco, and from the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, of Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli.
Volubilis is a partly-excavated Berber-Roman city in Morocco situated near the city of Meknes that may have been the capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania, at least from the time of King Juba II. Before Volubilis, the capital of the kingdom may have been at Gilda.
The Bou Regreg is a river located in western Morocco which discharges into the Atlantic Ocean between the cities of Rabat and Salé. The estuary of this river is termed Wadi Sala.
Mauretania Tingitana was a Roman province, coinciding roughly with the northern part of present-day Morocco. The territory stretched from the northern peninsula opposite Gibraltar, to Sala Colonia and Volubilis to the south, and as far east as the Mulucha river. Its capital city was Tingis, which is the modern Tangier. Other major cities of the province were Iulia Valentia Banasa, Septem, Rusadir, Lixus and Tamuda.
Tingis or Tingi, the ancient name of Tangier in Morocco, was an important Carthaginian, Moor, and Roman port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was eventually granted the status of a Roman colony and made the capital of the province of Mauretania Tingitana and, after Diocletian's reforms, the diocese of Hispania.
Lixus is an ancient city founded by Phoenicians before the city of Carthage. Its distinguishing feature is that it was continuously occupied from antiquity to the Islamic Era, and has ruins dating to the Phoenician, Punic, Mauretanian, Roman and Islamic periods.
The Chellah or Shalla, is a medieval fortified Muslim necropolis and ancient archeological site in Rabat, Morocco, located on the south (left) side of the Bou Regreg estuary. The earliest evidence of the site's occupation suggests that the Phoenicians established a trading emporium here in the first millennium BC. This was later the site of Sala Colonia, an ancient Roman colony in the province of Mauretania Tingitana, before it was abandoned in Late Antiquity. In the late 13th century the site began to be used as a dynastic necropolis for the Marinid dynasty. By the mid-14th century Marinid sultans had enclosed a part of the site with a new set of walls and built a religious complex inside it to accompany their mausoleums. In the 15th century the necropolis began to decline and it suffered damage over the centuries due to earthquakes and looting. Archeological excavations in the 20th century unearthed the remains of the ancient Roman town. Today the site is a tourist attraction and since 2012 it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Tipasa, sometimes distinguished as Tipasa in Mauretania, was a colonia in the Roman province Mauretania Caesariensis, nowadays called Tipaza, and located in coastal central Algeria. Since 1982, it has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It was declared a World Heritage Site in danger in 2002, but was removed from the danger list in 2006 following conservation efforts.
Gharb-Chrarda-Béni Hssen was formerly one of the sixteen regions of Morocco from 1997 to 2015. It was situated in north-western Morocco, covers an area of 8,805 square kilometres (3,400 sq mi) and has a population of 1,904,112. The capital was Kenitra.
Tamuda was an ancient Berber city and military camp in Mauretania Tingitana. It is located 6 km west of the present-day Tetouan in northern Morocco. Stone ruins from the site are found by the south bank of the Martil Valley. It was considered a city in accordance with the rules of urbanization of the time.
Abyla was the pre-Roman name of Ad Septem Fratres. Ad Septem Fratres, usually shortened to Septem or Septa, was a Roman colony in the province of Mauretania Tingitana and a Byzantine outpost in the exarchate of Africa. Its ruins are located within present-day Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city in northwest Africa.
Iulia Constantia Zilil was an ancient Roman-Berber city in Dchar Jdid, located 40 km southwest of Tangier and 13 km northeast of Asilah. It was one of the three colonias in Mauretania Tingitana founded by emperor Augustus between 33 and 25 BC for veterans of the battle of Actium.
Roman roads in Morocco were the western roads of Roman Africa.
Thamusida was a Punic river port that was in the present-day towns of Kénitra and Mehdya in Morocco. Under the Roman Empire, it formed a part of the province of Mauretania Tingitana.
Iulia Campestris Babba is a Mauretanian city created as Roman colony around 30 BC by emperor Augustus. Its actual location is currently unknown, though its existence is confirmed by the literature.
Roman colonies in North Africa are the cities—populated by Roman citizens—created in North Africa by the Roman Empire, mainly in the period between the reigns of Augustus and Trajan.
The Limes Mauretaniae was a portion of a 4,000-kilometre (2,500 mi) Roman fortified border (limes) in Africa approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of the modern day Algiers.
Tabula Banasitana is an inscribed bronze tablet produced in the second century AD. Found in 1957 near the village of Banasa in Morocco, it documents how a notable of the Berber tribe of Zegrenses successfully petitioned to receive Roman citizenship for him and his family. Fergus Millar has noted its importance as "perhaps our finest documentary item of evidence for the archival procedures of the Roman emperors and for the limits and consequences of granting citizenship, as well as affording some glimpses of social structure in a marginal area of the empire." The text was published for the first time in 1971. The tablet is currently at the Museum of History and Civilizations in Rabat.
Cotta was an ancient town built by Romans in the 1st century AD, in the province of Mauretania Tingitana, intended to function primarily as a garum factory. The town was likely abandoned in the 3rd century AD. Its ancient ruins are now located on the Atlantic coast of modern-day Morocco a few kilometers south of Cap Spartel, and include the garum factory, an olive press, a temple, a villa and a bath complex.