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Lixus (Berber languages : ⵍⵓⴽⵓⵙ, Phoenician: 𐤋𐤊𐤅𐤔) is an ancient city founded by Phoenicians (8th–7th century BC) 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 Phoenicia (8th–6th centuries BC), Punic people (5th–3rd centuries BC), (2nd century BC–AD 50), Roman Empire (AD 50–6th century AD) and Islamic (12th–15th centuries AD) periods.
The last of the Moorish kings was assassinated by the Caligula around 40 AD. 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 Christianity and there are even now the ruins of a Paleochristian church overlooking the archaeological area.
Lixus became a colony under Claudius (50 AD) and it retains an amphitheater and a forum from that period. The city would retain this status until the beginning of the 5th century. With the arrival of the Romans, the city acquired new administrative, social, religious, and economic structures. 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.
Lixus reached its maximum extent of more than 60 hectares between 50 and 150 AD 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.
In the north, researchers have found an L-shaped structure dating from the pre-Augustan period, it is a Cryptoporticus ( long, wide) with a central axis with columns supporting an upper platform. These remains could be a piazza structure, or a large sanctuary, with a temple in the center. On the ground floor, there are remains of a storage space, and an area with a garden closed off by a wing. It is probable that this sanctuary was Phoenician in origin. In the South-west of the quarter, under the courtyard of the «annexes» of building F, an archaeological survey showed a level of Phoenician ceramics characterized by a strong presence of red slip, Pithos, and of the Cruz de Negro type.
The Punico-Mauritanian phase is stratigraphically represented by residual furniture dating from the 4th to 3rd century BC. Stratigraphic layers under building G contain fragments of Attic ceramics and amphoric material which attest that the area was occupied by locals during this period. In the west, the excavations located in building E, have allowed the obtainment of a fragment, dating from the second half of the 1st century BC
The southwestern side of the so-called "Temples quarter" is known as the ‘Montalban chambers’. Changes in the internal layout of those buildings were made around 30 BC. This included the opening of new windows and doors with voussoir in the southern wall. This is an example of the general refurbishment and maintenance work of an urban project at the complex. Before the 1st century BC the city had an open space covering up to 4,000m², arranged on three terraces with a double cistern, as indicated by pottery founded from this phase.
The excavations have identified two rooms, E, elongated of a few m2 located in the south-east of the sector. They have doors on the west side, leaving space for a passageway behind the walls. The rooms are preceded by a vestibule and a staircase of building D. The chambers were built gradually, in several stages during the pre-Augustan period; they would have supported an upper story, and they were then incorporated into the new early Augustan complex
A Mauretanian storehouse was found at the western limit of the ‘Sacred garden", the new structure that covered the storehouses. It formed the southern facade of a new monumental area called the «Western wing» (28m width by 100 m length).
In the eastern sector, researchers have found buildings that might be interpreted as places of worship with a rectangular floor plan (C, A, D, B). Building C () has a podium in opus quadratum and an almost square cella with double doors, building D has superimposed floors in opus signinum with marble. Their location, in the upper part of the urban area, and with an open area in front of them, supports the proposal that they were temples without substantial buildings laid out behind them.
Buildings F, G, and H were structures with and and that the movement between them was fluent thanks to various doors. The religious buildings in the east of the site were probably temples and they remained in use even after the Augustan renovation of the quarter.
Under the portico of building F, there is a cistern (9.5m long and 3m deep) that dates to after the annexation of Mauretania in 43 AD. It may have been related to a channel located slightly to the southern side
Indeed, The area with the sanctuary, gardens, and some storehouses, which was built in the Mauretanian phase, was replaced by a palatial residence of Juba II of Mauretania covering . This residence was larger than the ‘Palace of Gordianus’ in Volubilis, which covered only
The ‘Palace of Juba II’, was on the upper slope of the south side of the «Choumich» hill,., it took full advantage of the panoramic possibilities of its position, it used architectural elements such as apses or semicircular porticoes, in combination with large windows and triple doors. It shows a splendid use of ambiguity between covered spaces (halls and exedrae), porticoes, gardens, and the landscape
There are some peculiarities of the palace in Lixus: The designer extended the spaces intended for clients. The court with the Pedestal is the equivalent of the doorway to a conventional Tablinum, and the hall in complex G is an oversized Oecus, and it was a kind of gallery for displaying .
Based on this interpretation, building F, situated in the middle of the garden and surrounded by porticoes, would be the principal Triclinium of Lixus's palace. This great Triclinium would have been the venue for important official events, as an Oecus Cyzicenus for feasting while enjoying the landscape.
This Roman phase corresponds also to a notable change in the urban landscape. In the northern sector of the "Temples quarter", there were structures that take up the space between exedra H and building G. The hall complex was interpreted as beginning with a Corinthian Atrium with six . A bath complex probably belonging to the Flavian dynasty was built against the northern wall of the Atrium. Continuing northwards, a row of four cubicles (The largest of them measures 4*7 m) interconnected with each other have large doors opening onto a U-shaped peristyle decorated with , adorned with ionic capitals, and opened through a door onto the gallery of the Cryptoporticus. The principal floor of the western wing contained a room with five doors that lead into the peristyle surrounding the building F. The first leads into the south of the peristyle, the second leads into a room with a skylight in the ceiling to provide overhead lighting, the third and fourth doors have connected one of the cubicles with building F. Finally, the fifth door has connected the U-shaped peristyle G to the large peristyle F via a short passage.
Complexes F, G, and H were built at the same time. Building H was identified as a temple when it was discovered, it surrounded an interior garden with an ornamental feature, Building F was a large temple. This opinion was shared by later authors.
Next to the rooms mentioned above, there was a large Oecus which was the most important room in the whole of the western area. It was a huge T-shaped hall ( long, wide) adjoining a sophisticated chamber adorned with canopies resting on 7 small Cylinder . Researchers have also found a rectangular Corinthian atrium with two rows of Pedestal M, which served as the antechamber to a rectangular court decorated, and continued to the entrance in the eastern wall, where a great door has led into the large hall G which marked the northern end of the western wing.
The quarter had become the northern end of the city which has extended to the salt factories, after the withdrawal of the Roman administration in the south of the province and the relocation of Roman in the northern border of Loukkos river .
The row of small temples (C, A, D, and B) faced east., had survived until the final days of ancient Lixus, they had behind them a large open area extended to the end of the western wall of the city. A row of rooms bordered the space to the west, with some internal subdivisions that were built on the preexisting walls dating from the eighth to seventh century. The opus signinum pavements and opus quadratum podium had been built by the early second century
Researchers suggest the presence of arcades and decorating the terraced gardens, which lead to the hypothesis that this whole area was a large urban sanctuary, including a variety of buildings laid out on different levels: some storage buildings, a temple surrounded by a cryptoporticus, and a relatively large cistern.
The city of Lixus in the 14th century was an urban center more densely populated than neighboring villages such as Larache, and it certainly remained inhabited even after the Arab-Islamic conquest, bearing the name of Tochoummis. Ruins of houses and a mosque built in the Almohad doctrine or Marinid period have survived from this period. Apparently, Lixus was abandoned when the city of Larache was fortified and consolidated.
As part of the implementation of the High Royal Guidelines aimed at rehabilitating the national cultural heritage, the Ministry of Culture and Communication has launched a vast program of restoration and rehabilitation of historic sites through the national territory of Morocco, involving the archaeological site of Lixus by highlighting the characteristics of the site and promoting the destination on the regional, national and international tourist map to contribute to local economic and social development. In 2019, the Ministry spent 11.8 million dirhams on a new visitor's center and other new tourist facilities, 15 million dirhams on a restoration program, 6.75 million dirhams towards the restoration and maintenance of the site, 4.6 million dirhams on improving the site's surrounding infrastructure, and 2.2 million dirhams towards archeological research and training.
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