Morocco - Banasa

Franco-Moroccan Archaeological Mission in Banasa
Mission Leaders: Eliane Lenoir (UMR 8546, CNRS-ENS, Paris), Rachid Arharbi (National Authority on Cultural Heritage, Rabat).

Summary Profile

In the heart of the Gharb Plain, this Roman colony site of Iulia Valentia Banasa occupies two monticules on the lower bank of the Oued Sebou, just a few meters above the banks of the Sububus River, near a ford, the said river being described by Pliny as magnificus et navigabilis. This location fostered, from the 2nd century BC on, Banasa’s integration into the trade circles of the Western Mediterranean, as attested to by the coins, ceramics and amphora imported from Italy and Spain and, more particularly, in the Straits of Gibraltar circle.

Surveys have revealed signs of older occupation. The Banasa tell was frequented from as early as the 4th century BC, and perhaps earlier, as evidenced in the remains of pottery workshops where the ceramics were produced, and where, despite Phoenician, Greek and Ibero-Punic influences, great originality was still expressed. The first structures known until now, made of raw brick walls and covers made of reed and raw wood grids, do not pre-date the 3rd century BC.

Between 33 and 25 BC, the city became a Roman colony, bearing the name Iulia Valentia Banasa. Little is yet known about the vestiges of this Augustan colony, but the orthogonal outline that governs the central quarter is believed to come from this period. At the start of Marcus Aurelius’ reign, Banasa became Colonia Aurelia, and remains a flourishing centre up to 285 AD, at which time the Roman province was reduced to the territories located north of Lukos. Banasa was then abandoned. Nonetheless, recent research shows that there subsist the remains of medieval occupation, before the site became occupied by the marabout shrines of Sidi Ali bou Jenoun, Sidi Mohamed al Garge and Sidi Bouazza.

Mission Overview

The geophysical prospecting carried out as part of the Franco-Moroccan Research Programme on the fresco-decorated thermal baths and the development of the ancient city of Banasa, which ran from 1991 to 1998, in conjunction with the Institute of Archaeology and Heritage Sciences of Rabat, have provided new documentation about the extension of the city, the thickness of the anthropic layer defined along different axes and the location of the pottery workshops in the pre-Roman times. The anomaly that determined the location of the dig is of exceptional amplitude, which extends across a zone in which several levels of kilns are found in succession and where the workshops span out broadly.