The rich Roman past is embedded in the ruins of this ancient Moroccan city

Last Seen: Dec 22, 2024 @ 4:35am 4DecUTC

Md Mahmudul Hasan Roman
@HasanRoman

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Morocco’s Volubilis became an important region during the Roman Empire. The traces of the Romans still remain in the structure of this city. Go to Volubilis from Rabat, Morocco. It takes about two and a half hours to go by car. I left after having breakfast at the hotel. Moroccan highways are wide and clean. Got fined for speeding coming from Casablanca to Rabat. So now I see the speed limit again and again. Highway from Rabat to Meknes city. Then the National Highway. A bit crooked, so drive carefully. I reached Volubilis cautiously. Asking for a ticket in Arabic at the counter, practiced several times. It seemed to work. I bought the ticket and went inside. Local people work as guides here. Such a person came and wanted to be our guide. We also happily agreed and started walking following him. Volubilis is one of the most important archaeological sites in North Africa. UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1997. The city developed from the 3rd century BC as a settlement for the indigenous Berber community of Morocco. After coming under the Romans, it became an important region of the Roman Empire. In the second and third centuries AD it was used as the capital of the Roman region of Mauritania. How people’s lifestyle was then can be guessed by looking at the ruins of houses and markets here. Part of a Roman mosaic survives in one house. It can be seen that this is the house of a wealthy person. As we walked we came up on the Decumanus Maximus or east-west road. This is the main road of the city. Aqueducts (Romans’ water supply system) passed under this road to different parts of the city. Here a public bath came into view. This ancient bath had cold and hot water. Looking straight towards the road, one can see the Triumphal Arch or Vijayatoran. This road built so many years ago still survives. I walked forward. What is written in Roman language above the triumphal arch. The guide said it was dedicated to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. His description is written. In some other houses I saw some more Roman mosaics, which still survive all these years. Then the Capitoline temple and the basilica came into view. These have been somewhat restored. In the eighth century, the Arabs changed the name of the city to Walili. Idris ibn Abdullah was the founder of the Idrisi dynasty and the first Muslim ruler of Morocco. He ruled from 788 to 791. It became an abandoned city in the 11th century. On the way back from the city, several olive trees were seen. I ate two olives. These are not the kind of olives we eat in the country. Seeing us eating olives, the guide brought a bowl of olives from somewhere. This bharta is not like the bharta of our country, it is quite fun to eat. I said goodbye to the guide and left for Idris Zerhoun, 15 minutes away from the city center.