In the past called Amogdul ( it kept well ) in Berber, Mogdura in Portuguese, Mogadur in Spanish and Mogador in French, Essaouira (rear RTL الصويرة) ( it drawn well ) is a harbor city Morocco on the Atlantic coast approximately cash 70.000 inhabitants and the chief town of the province of the same name which counts approximately 500.000 inhabitants.
Its Médina is registered on the Liste of the world heritage of UNESCO.
Geography
Port located on the Atlantic coast, to 173 km in the north of Agadir, to 176 km in the west of Marrakech and 360 km in the south of Casablanca.
History
According to the tradition, after the foundation of Carthage in 814 av. J. - C. of the merchants Punique S moved towards the extreme Occident, until Essaouira , to install there scales , counters. The first men on whom there exist information spoke a Berber language there. Consequently Essaouira, this damping used by the Carthaginian navigator Hannon as of the Life front century J. - C., protected from the Trade winds and rich in drinking water, was useful during several centuries of station advanced on the road of the Cape Verde and Ecuador. Towards the IIIe front century J. - C., the Berber ones were organized in monarchy.
The area passed under Roman influence following the Third Punic War in 146 av. J. - C.. Rome made a State-customer of this kingdom whose most famous sovereign was Juba II. The sovereign supported the installation of his crew and the development of the industry of the saltings and the Pourpre. It is this second activity (production of dyeing starting from a shell: the murex) which explains the fame of the islands Purpuraires (with broad of Essaouira) until the end of the Roman Empire. This color, at the Old ones, was synonymous with a high social status. In 42 a. J. - C., Rome ends up annexing the Berber kingdom to transform it into Roman Province of Maurétanie tingitane.
With the Middle Ages, the Portuguese sailors measure all the advantages of this bay and baptize the city Mogador , deformation probable of the name of Sidi Mogdoul, a local marabout. The Jewish have a special statute of intermediaries between the sultan and the foreign powers, obliged to install in Essaouira a consular Maison (there was until ten in the Kasbah ). They are called the “traders of the king” or the “representatives consular”. They have, for example, the monopoly of the sale of corn to the Christians, this one being prohibited with the Moslems.
The new city
In 1764, the sultan Mohammed Ben Abdellah decides to install in Essaouira its naval base, from where the corsairs will punish the inhabitants of Agadir in revolt against its authority. It calls upon Theodore Cornut, a French architect with the pay of the Britanniques of Gibraltar. The sultan receives it with all the honors due to a large artist and the realization of the new city “in the middle of sand and of the wind entrusts to him, where there was nothing”. Cornut the Inhabitant of Avignon, who had been employed by Louis XV with the construction of the fortifications of the Roussillon, worked 3 years to build the port and the kasbah , whose original plan is preserved at the National library from France in Paris. It would seem that the second belt of ramparts and the Médina were drawn well after the departure of Cornut. The sultan had not wished to prolong their collaboration, reproaching the French for being too expensive and for having worked for the British enemy. With its very regular plan, the city deserves well its current name of Es Saouira , which means “Well-Drawn”.
The importance of Essaouira did not cease growing until first half of the 19th century, and the city knew a formidable prosperity thanks to the important Jewish community. One counted there to 17.000 Jews for hardly 10.000 Moslems. The Moroccan middle-class ran to buy jewels there. It a long time was called the port of Tombouctou, because the Caravane S charged with Or, spice S and slaves come from sub-Saharan Africa were negotiated there. The trade was flourishing there. But the majority of the Jews left after the Guerre the Six Days. Today, there remains only some Jewish families in ville.
Pendant years, it was the only Moroccan port opened with the foreign trade. The decline started with French protectorate and the development of other ports (Casablanca, Tangier, Agadir). Handicapped by its not very deep water and not being able to receive the large modern boats, the city however knows a spectacular rebirth since about fifteen years, rebirth due primarily to tourism but also with its vocation will culturelle.
Essaouira is today the chief town of a province of 500.000 inhabitants, for the majority farmers. The city is linked by an operation of co-operation with Saint-Malo, under the aegis of UNESCO.
City twins La Rochelle.
Kasbah of Essaouira
Vis-a-vis the sometimes coléreux Atlantic Ocean, the Sqala of the Kasbah is old a long Batterie 200 meters where guns come from Spain are aligned. It is on these ramparts which sheltered the corsairs of the sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah that Orson Welles made its film Othello.
Fish sardines
Old harbor site, Essaouira, old the Mogador of the Portuguese then of the French, of modest proportions, are seen more and more concurencée by larger ports for the fishing of the Sardine on the Atlantic coast.
Tourism
Some photographs
| Random links: | Pizzicato | Association of the students of the Bible | Guillaume III (bishop of Uzès) | Thomas Van Hamme | Florence Weber |