Site of an Ancient Port City Explored in Morocco

RABAT, MOROCCO—According to an Associated Press report, archaeologists have been excavating a necropolis, baths, and a working-class neighborhood in Chellah, an ancient city site located near Morocco’s Atlantic Ocean coastline that was once inhabited by the Phoenicians. Abdelaziz El Khayari of Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage explained that the city’s location likely made it a trade hub, although the researchers have not yet uncovered the actual port. Recent discoveries include a statue of a woman, perhaps a deity or an empress, and bricks bearing inscriptions written in neo-Punic, a language used in the region prior to the arrival of the Romans in the second century A.D. To read about the medieval city of Aghmat in southern Morocco, go to "Letter from Morocco: Splendor at the Edge of the Sahara."