Before Tangier: Ancient Tingis

Founded by the Phoenicians in the first millennium BCE, Tingis quickly becomes an essential stop for sailors along Morocco's Atlantic coast. Its sheltered bay offers safe anchorage and its location at the mouth of the strait controls passage between Atlantic and Mediterranean. The Carthaginians build a prosperous trading post here, exchanging salt, cured fish, purple dye and grain across the whole Mediterranean basin.

Under Rome, Tingis gains unprecedented political weight. Augustus makes it a Roman colony and Claudius elevates it to capital of Mauretania Tingitana in the 1st century. A forum, baths, salting workshops and its own coinage structure a city whose influence stretched far beyond the strait. Archaeologists still uncover mosaics, amphorae and Latin inscriptions from this dense, cosmopolitan urban life.

Most of ancient Tingis lies beneath today's medina, but several traces are visible. The Kasbah Museum shows stelae, mosaics and everyday Roman objects found here. The Caves of Hercules and the Cotta site, about fifteen kilometres away, extend the visit with remains of ancient salting factories facing the Atlantic. Walking the medina today means walking on layered strata of one continuous port city, unbroken for over two thousand years.