| History & Patrimony |
| Kenitra, the site of Mehdiya |
|
|
|
| 7km from Kenitra, Mehdiya (or Al Madhiya or El Mamora), is built on a rock escarpment, its fortifications are still standing at the edge of the Atlantic to dominate the coastal plain and to protect the Sebou wadi delta... |
Some see in Mehdiya the site of the Carthaginian harbour of Thymiaterion (5th century B.C).
Strengthened during the era of the sultan Abd Al-Moumen (the Almohades dynasty) in the XIIth century so to install an arsenal of 120 ships there... El Mamora becomes then a den of pirates.
In 1614, in order to protect their maritime communications, the Spanish seized the city and name it: San Miguel de Ultramar.
In 1681, the sultan Moulay Ismaïl (Alaouite dynasty), drove out the Spanish |
and ordered the construction of the monumental gate, a mosque, a palace, a hammam, a prison and several constructions... The fleet of Mehdiya resumes once again its actions in the seas... and it is only in the 19th Centuries that the acts of piracy ceased.
Today, several monuments testify to the splendour of the earlier times: the seigniorial house of Caîd ar-Rifi built in the XVIIth century, a private hammam of Moorish type, cisterns, a prison and a mosque, fondouks. |
|
|
