Sijilmassa - trans Saharan trading destination

One take on trans-Saharan trade routes in the Middle Ages.

On Tuesday, I'm off to a meeting of the ATLAS Collaboration in Marrakech.   Technically, the meeting doesn't start until the following Monday, but I'm scheduling some time to see the ruins of Sijilmassa on the edge of the Sahara Desert. 

I first encountered Sijilmassa as a mysterious entry on a table of latitudes and longitudes from the Middle Ages published by the geographer John Kirtland Wright.    Many of the entries were mysterious to me, but I could roughly place their location once I had figured out that the table used the Cape Verde Islands as the Prime Meridian.  Once I got that going, it was a fun exercise to locate cities that arose long after the time of Ptolemy, and have long since turned to ruins - brief flowers of culture arising to loose their sweetness on the desert air (to paraphrase Thomas Gray). 

At the time the tables were created, two entries indicated the preferred trans-Saharan trade route in that era:  Sijilmassa at the north and Gana at the south. The entry "Gana" appears, which refers to the Empire of Ghana, not the modern country.   For some time, the Empire of Ghana controlled the lucrative gold, salt, and slave trade from the northern limits of sub-Saharan Africa up to the Berber Empires.    We don't know the ancient capital of Gana, but some place it as the ruins of Koumbi Saleh, which were found in 1914 in southeast Mauritania.  

As time went on, the fortunes of the Empire of Ghana faded, and the Empire of Mali took control over the trans-Saharan trade, with Tombouctou being the main launching point, as it still is for the remaining Toureg traders.   

Sijilmassa was founded about the time of the 7th and 8th centuries by the Sufris, who were part of the Khawarjiite sect of Islam, which originated in what is now Iraq.   The Khawarjiites are distinct from both the Sunni and Shiite branches.   The city has quite a violent history, perhaps due to the lucrative nature of the trade.    Until the 11th Centurey, Sijilmassa was largely independent of the rule of the Caliphates to the north until the Almoravids took over, as they did a large chunk of the Maghreb at the time.   The Almoravids imposed a very strict interpretation of Islam, smashing musical instruments, among other items considered by them to be signs of apostasy.  

As went the Maghreb, so went Sijilmassa. In the 12th Century, the Almohads took over.  If you thought the Almoravids were extreme, the Almohads were even more so, killing the Jews living in Sijilmassa.   

A Morrocan traveler in 1353 wrote of Sijilmassa: "I reached the city of Sijilmasa, a very beautiful city.   It has abundant dates of good quality.   The city of al-Basra is like it in the abundance of dates, but those of Sijilmassa are superior."  

The geographer Leo Africanus tried to visit Sijilmassa in the 16th century, but found it in ruins.   The cause of its downfall at that time was not known and shrouded in legend.   The Sultan Moulay Ismail rebuild Sijilmassa in the 18th century, but it was razed by nomadic tribes in 1818. 

The question of navigation across the Sahara from Gana to Sijilmassa is interesting.  Often camel caravans travel single file, with the person at the rear shouting instructions to the front to keep them tracking in a straight line, so as to not lose their bearings.   Presumably natural indicators like the rising and setting sun and the stars at night could provide a bearing for the day, and I assume that this single-file trick was sufficient to ensure a reliable heading during the day.   I suppose if they traveled at night, the caravans would have had the stars to guide them, which would eliminate a large number of problems.   If I were forced or asked to lead a caravan across the Sahara, I could probably designate a prime time as the times before sunrise when stars were visible, but the ground was also visible, to some two hours after sunrise, and then again at two hours before sunset until one could no longer reliably see the ground at night.   This would ensure decent information on one's bearings, and also would avoid the extreme temperatures of midday and the middle of the night.   

The ruins of Sijilmassa are considered a cultural treasure by the Morrocan Government and is also an International Heritage site.   It's located a few miles outside of the town of Rissani on the edge of the Sahara desert, and near the border with Algeria.

For me, I'm flying into Marrakech, and have arranged to travel over the Atlas Mountains (appropriately enough) to Ourzazate, then then continue on to Rissani.   Evidently Ourzazate has played host to many films and has quite a local infrastructure for filming.   Among other movies made in Ourzazate, The Sheltering Sky, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci was filmed there and the surrounding areas.      This was adapted from the famous novel by Paul Bowles. 

While Ourzazate it snuggled into the eastern slopes of the Atlas Mountains, Rissani is some distance overland to the east.  I'll report more after the excursion.