Lixus Museum - جولة داخل متحف الموقع الاثري ليكسوس

Lixus Museum - جولة داخل متحف الموقع الاثري ليكسوس

Lixus is an ancient city founded by Phoenicians (8th-7th century BCE) 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 (8th–6th centuries BCE), Punic (5th–3rd centuries BCE), Mauretanian (2nd century BCE–CE 50), Roman (CE 50–6th century CE) and Islamic (12th–15th centuries CE) periods.

Tentative World Heritage Status

Lixus was submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage on July 1, 1995, by the Ministry of Culture of Morocco, on the basis of three cultural selection criteria. In a 2019 press release, the Ministry of Culture stated that it was implementing a cultural and economic development strategy, with the intent on working towards Lixus being officially listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Geography

The archaeological site of Lixus is located in Morocco northeast of Larache city (70 km (43 mi) south of Tangier) on the right bank of the Loukkos river, 4 km (2.5 mi) from the coast. Lixus was built on a hill of 80 metres (260 ft) above sea level, and covers 70 hectares (170 acres), it dominates the Atlantic shore and the valley formed by the Loukkos. It is surrounded by marshy plains to the south and southwest, in which salt factories have been created. It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list on July 1, 1995, in the cultural category.

Name

The official language was Punic, used on the city's autonomous currency issues from the 2nd century BCE, the name of the site appears on coins in Punic as the triliteral LKS, and in Latin as LIX and LIXS (The Lixus / Lixos form is consecrated by the Greco-Latin tradition).

Legends

Such a far-away place was subject of myths, the garden of the Hesperides with the golden apples of and the palace of Antaeus were said to have been here. By its vestiges the archaeological site reminds us of a long phase of the ancient history of the country, it also reminds us of thousands years old legends about Okeanus the Roman ocean god, Hercules and the three golden apples, the legendary fight of Hercules and Antaeus, Theseus slaying the Minotaur, and about Hercules separating Africa from Europe. Pliny the Elder reports several «fabulous tales»: «Here was the royal palace of Antaeus, his fight with Hercules and the gardens of the Hesperides were here ..... Hercules had to enter to this garden to steal the golden apples; the entrance was guarded by a dragon....» Pliny saw in this dragon an allegory of the river described by many meanders.

History

Phoenicians first settled in Lixus in the 8th or 7th centuries BCE and the city had become part of a chain of Phoenician cities along the Atlantic coast of ancient Morocco; other major settlements further to the south are Chellah (called Sala Colonia by the Romans) and Mogador. When Carthage's empire fell to Rome during the Punic Wars, Lixus, Chellah, and Mogador became outposts of the province of Mauretania Tingitana.[3]


Picture of the archaeological site of Lixus showing ruins, salt factories, and Larache in the background
Lixus retained its strategic importance, especially under Juba II and his son Ptolemy. Its industrial complex was created during the reign of Juba II, and it was the largest and the most important in the entire Mediterranean. Fishing and viticulture were the city's main economic resources, which can be inferred from the bunches of grapes and tuna which adorned their coins. The port of Lixus played an important role in Atlantic trade as the hill of Tchoummich corresponds perfectly to the conditions sought by the Phoenician sailors, whose economic activities were closely linked to the sea .[3]

Picture of the Roman amphitheater in Lixus
The Roman amphitheater in Lixus
The last of the Moorish kings was assassinated by the Roman emperor Caligula around 40 CE. From then on, Lixus would become part of the Roman Empire, more precisely the province of Mauretania Tingitania. By the third century, Lixus became almost fully Christian and there are even now the ruins of a Paleochristian church overlooking the archaeological area.

Lixus became a colony under Claudius (50 CE) and it retains an amphitheater and a forum from that period. The city would retain this status until the beginning of the 5th century.[3] With the arrival of the Romans, the city acquired new administrative, social, religious, and economic structures.[8] During the Roman period, the city maintained its commercial vitality, thanks to fishing and salt factories. This economic development fueled an important urban and architectural evolution.[3]

Lixus reached its maximum extent of more than 60 hectares between 50 and 150 CE, and became the largest city of Tingitane. According to the first excavators, this prosperity appears to have waned from the second half of the 3rd century. In the 4th century, the agglomeration folded in on itself