2. MOROCCO

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EXTENT

Morocco; Spanish region of Ceuta y Melilla.

SOURCES

Extremely infrequent notices in Greek literature from c 300 BC on; somewhat more frequent Latin references from c 100 BC on. Local inscriptions (Latin, Phoenician, Libyan, Hebrew) are scanty; no local literature survives. Arabic references (concerning 7th century AD) date to 8th century AD on, and are not local until still later. For inscriptions:

• Inscriptions Antiques du Maroc. Inscriptions Libyques. Inscriptions Puniques et Néopuniques. Inscriptions Hébraïques. Lionel Galand, James Fevrier, and Georges Vajda, respectively. A volume of 'Publications de la Section Antiquité du Centre de Récherches sur l'Afrique Mediteranéenne'. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, 1966.
• Inscriptions Antiques du Maroc. Inscriptions Latines. Maurice Euzennat and Jean Marion. A volume of 'Études d'antiquités africaines'. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, 1982.
• "Pour un Corpus des inscriptions latines du Maroc". M. Lenoir. In Bulletin d'Archéologie Marocaine (Rabat), 1983/84, 15: 225-280. Detailed review of volume 2, with reference to detailed review of preceding volume.

For archæology, see various articles subtitled or titled "Contribution à l'Atlas Archéologique du Maroc" in the same Bulletin, and also the references below.

Historians have agreed that a history of ancient Morocco could not be written, though they overstated the case. Work is done mainly in French, also in Arabic and several Western languages. I've found no satisfactory account in any Western language of what is known, though Arabic may offer better. This entry is therefore unusually long, and relies on guesswork more than I like. Please notify me of anything I can do to improve it.

PERIODISATION AND TERMS

In the hinterland, the Mauri, first mentioned c 400 BC, emerged as players in the Third Punic and the Jugurthine wars, 2nd century BC, if not earlier. King Bocchus of Mauretania (ruled from before 110 BC to after 92 BC) annexed western Algeria in 105 BC, but his successors split the two territories again, with the border at the Moulouya River. In 38 BC the regions were reunited. Soon after AD 40, Rome annexed them.

The new provinces were Mauretania Tingitana and (west of the Moulouya, for which cf. Algeria) Mauretania Caesariensis. Tingitana rebelled upon annexation, and several times in the 2nd century AD (historians disagree about when). Whether it ever Romanised much is controversial. The capital was Tingis and/or Volubilis. Rome abandoned the latter and most of the country around AD 285; the remainder became part of the diocese Hispaniae. The Vandals' passage in AD 429 wiped out that Roman remnant.

Subsequent local kingdoms - perhaps at Volubilis, certainly at Alteva just across the Algerian border - seem to have been Romanised Berber in character, and usually Christian. In AD 544, the Romans retook Septem from the Visigoths (whose arrival there is not recorded); the Visigoths got back there sometime before AD 700. Invaders from the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate began reaching the area c AD 681; conquest came shortly after AD 708.

Summary:

	From	To
Phoenician	?	500 BC
Punic	500 BC	204 BC
Mauretanian	204 BC	AD 40
All three periods are often referred to together as "Punic", and in fact published information on non-Phoenician people in the millennium before 204 BC is scanty.
Roman	AD 40	AD 429
(Romanised) Berber	AD 285	AD 708

INTRODUCTORY

The above may well be the fullest account specific to Morocco in English, which is precisely why I made it so full. For any further introduction you'll have to go to broader histories and glean what little relates to this region. The following three works in French are inadequate; each has unique virtues, but each also has significant flaws, none includes even all the information given above (though one comes close), and two are not even reviewed anywhere to my knowledge. They are nevertheless listed because none of the three is widely available.

• De l'Empire romain aux Villes impériales. 6000 ans d'art au Maroc. Also titled Min al-Imbaraturiyah al-Rumaniyah ila-al-'awasim al-'atiqah. Sittat alaf sanah min al-funun bi-al-Maghrib, though none of the text is in Arabic. Ed. anonymously [by Abdelaziz Touri, Bruno Racine, et alii??]. Paris: Musée du Petit Palais, 1990. Much the best of these three, and covers nearly everything above; strong bibliography (though little guidance); but it's an exhibition catalogue, and sections on anything other than art history are simply far too short. Still, if that's its only fault, it's much the best place to start, if you can. Roughly half the book (over 200 pp., including pictures) is concerned with the period from 1000 BC to AD 700.
• I've found no reviews for this book.
  I wish I didn't have to list this book.
  Le Maroc Saharien des origines au XVIe Siècle. D. Jacques-Meunié. [Paris]: Librairie Klinksieck, 1982. Pages 159 to 198 cover the ancient period. Half of this space is devoted to religious history. Fully footnoted. The account nevertheless lacks detail, and appears to be rather more outdated than publication date implies. Archæology is used scantily and in an old-fashioned way.
• I've found no reviews for this book.
  I wish I didn't have to list this book.
  Le Memorial du Maroc. Volume 1: - 660: Naissance d'un foyer du civilisation. Larbi Essakali, editor. [Rabat?]: Nord Organisation, 1983. Archæology and history are well-integrated in this (the only book-length treatment since 1943?), and the whole period is covered. But the book is poorly organised, and although it's much more detailed than the other two, it's padded with information from elsewhere in the Maghreb and still doesn't cover everything above. Worse, there are no references, notes, bibliography, citations, or other means of verifying statements made; and Essakali's appendix, which marshals every possible angle of pseudo-history to show that ancient Moroccans discovered America, sharply diminishes my confidence in the rest of the book. Probably preferable overall to Jacques-Meunié, but not by much.

RESEARCH

The situation here is better thanks to occasional scholarly papers. However, these papers are not necessarily reliable, and of course reviews of them are generally unavailable. For items subsequent to those listed here, see primarily Antiquités africaines (Paris) and secondarily L'Africa Romana (Sassari, Sardinia; for a typical year's citation see below).

'Punic' period (Up to AD 40)

I can recommend nothing whole-heartedly. Most especially, archaeology of the immediate pre-Phoenician era is invisible in secondary literature; and no recent review of the Phoenician, (narrow) Punic, or Mauretanian periods exists, where 'recent' means 'after general acceptance of dendrochronological calibration of radiocarbon dates'. Since most evidence for these periods is archaeological, this is a real problem. That said, the most promising-looking item (though I haven't seen it) is:

• I have not seen this book.
  Mauritania Tingitana. De mercado colonial Púnico a provincia periférica romana. Fernando López Pardo. Thesis at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1987; 684 pages.

It is apparently reviewed in

• I have not seen this article.
  Gerión (Madrid), article by Wagner, 1988, 6: 310-314.

Meanwhile, of what I have seen, I recommend you begin with

• Lixus. Actes du colloque organisée par l'Institut des sciences de l'archéologie et du patrimonie de Rabat avec le concours de l'École française de Rome. Larache, 8-11 novembre 1989. Ed. anonymously [by Joudia Hassar Benslimane?]. No. 166 of 'Collection de l'École Française de Rome'. Palais Farnèse[, Rome]: École Française de Rome, 1992. The papers all focus on Lixus, but range widely otherwise in topics and so are probably the best bet for bibliography on a specific area.

For a connected account, however, see (with much allowance for obsolescence by later work and much caution on chronology):

• I wish I didn't have to list this book.
  Marruecos Púnico. M. Tarradell. A volume in 'Historia de Marruecos', and in 'Publicaciones de la Facultad de Letras, Universidad de Rabat, Instituto Muley el-Hasan'. Tetuan: Editorial Cremades, 1960.

It would also be worthwhile to consult the corresponding reference on Algeria.

The literature on Hanno is fairly large and quite disjunct, as witness the significantly different views taken in three recent important reference works, which rely on references that don't much overlap. (Detailed citations at bottom.)

Roman period

Here matters are somewhat better. Narrowly focused papers appear in nearly every annual volume of Antiquités africaines. The following papers may be better, because more recent, than the ones I have seen:

• I have not seen this article.
  "Rome et les tribus indigènes en Maurétanie Tingitane". Michel Christol. In L'Africa Romana. Atti del V Convegno di studio. Sassari, 11-13 dicembre 1987, ed. Attilio Mastino. Sassari: Pubblicazioni del Dipartimento di Storia dell'Universita degli Studi di Sassari IX, 1987??.
• I have not seen this article.
  "Géographie et administration de la Maurétanie Tingitane". Christine Hamdoune. In L'Information historique (Paris), 1991, 53: 127-133.

Meanwhile, consult first

• I wish I didn't have to list this article.
  "The Romans and the indigenous tribes of Mauritania Tingitana". Marlene C. Sigman. In Historia (Wiesbaden), 1977, 26: 415-439. A connected account, such as there can be.

But then promptly read

• "Rome et la Maurétanie Tingitane: un constat d'échec?". Edmond Frezouls. In Antiquités africaines, 1980, 16: 65-93. This not only provides a commented bibliographic update for the preceding decade or so, but is a vehement critique of several unsupported claims Sigman makes.

Berber era

• "Rex Gentium Maurorum et Romanorum: recherches sur les royaumes de Maurétanie des VI et VII siècles". Gabriel Camps. In Antiquités africaines, 1984, 20: 183-218. A thorough and detailed synthesis of the extremely scanty evidence.

Detailed citations on Hanno.

The first two rely on Desanges and Jodin, to differing degrees; the third, on Blomqvist, who is not even cited by the first two. Nor does the third cite Desanges or Jodin.

• "Phoenicia and Phoenician colonization". W. Culican. "Lightly revised by" C. B. F. Walker. In The Cambridge Ancient History. Second Edition. Volume III. Part 2. The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C., John Boardman et al., editors, Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pages 461-546. (See specifically pages 543-545. Note that W. Culican died in 1984.)
• "The Phoenicians". Edward Lipinski. In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Volume II, Jack M. Sasson, editor in chief, New York etc.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995, pages 1321-1333. (See specifically pages 1330-1333.)
• "Hanno (1)". Nicholas Purcell. In The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Third Edition, Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, editors, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, page 666.

Created c. August 5, 1997. Last updated October 16, 1997. Next due for full update August 5, 2002.

Reviewed by mena-h (but without any comments received).

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Copyright 1997 Joe Bernstein. Electronic transfer permitted.