Thamusida 2.7

Thamusida is a Roman-Berber river port and city in the northern province of Mauretania Tingitana, located near Kénitra and Mehdia, Morocco.CharacteristicsThe site was excavated from 1913 by the French, then 1959 to 1962 and since 1998. Many items found in Thamusida are today on display at the Rabat Archaeological Museum. It occupies an area of fifteen acres. Excavations have unearthed the walls of the docks and baths. Under the Antonines, a temple was built to worship Venus.HistoryThe city originally was a Berber settlement, that was occupied by Romans in the first years of Augustus rule. There were a military camp and a nearby little city, until Claudius enlarged Thamusida. According to historian Stefano Camporeale, the auxiliary unit that built the Roman camp in Thamusida was probably the Cohors secunda Syrorum civium Romanorum in the second half of the first century (ceramic evidence confirms this chronology): this camp (with annexed "vicus") was one of the largest camps of the whole province of Mauretania Tingitana and measured about 2 hectares. Later the settlement grew progressively, and by the end of the second century or the early third century, it was surrounded by a wall that included a total area of about 15 hectares.In the third century Thamusida become a mostly Christian city, with a population of nearly 7,000 inhabitants. The site was abandoned around 285 AD, when Diocletian moved the Roman limes of Mauretania Tingitana to the north, near Lixus. There were some inhabitants -according to recent archeological discoveries- in Thamusida for another century after the Roman abandonment. But with the Vandal invasion the city disappeared around 425 AD.