[Review of the book Volubilis après Rome: Les fouilles UCL/INSAP, 2000-2005 by Elizabeth Fentress and Hassan Limane]

ORCID

0000-0002-0871-4249 (Benton)

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2021

DOI

10.3764/ajaonline1254.Benton

Publication Title

American Journal of Archaeology

Volume

125

Issue

4

Abstract

[Introduction] Volubilis après Rome (VAR) is the publication of the results of the 2000–2005 seasons of the Anglo-Moroccan archaeological project at the ancient and medieval city of Volubilis, known in Arabic as Walīlā. This ancient city with origins in the Early Iron Age probably reached its peak, in terms of population and wealth, during the third century CE. Limane and Fentress, supported by the University College London (UCL) and the Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine (INSAP), set out an ambitious agenda to explore the largely overlooked period of the city’s Early Medieval occupation. Early excavators at Volubilis favored the Roman city, but, as with many early Mediterranean excavations, the periods before Roman rule (the so-called Mauretanian period) and after the third century CE (and particularly the Islamic period) were largely neglected. Indeed, Limane and Fentress organize a deep understanding of a Walīlā that was clearly abandoned sometime in the beginning of the fifth century, reoccupied sometime in the second half of the sixth century CE, and flourished until the ninth century, even serving as home to Morocco’s first king, Idris I. VAR reveals a previously overlooked chapter in the city’s history and, as such, is the most important publication about Volubilis in the last 50 years, substantially advancing our understanding of the city and the fate of Mauretania Tingitana after Rome.

Rights

© 2021 Archaeological Institute of America.

Published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.

Original Publication Citation

Benton, J. (2021). [Review of the book Volubilis après Rome: Les fouilles UCL/INSAP, 2000-2005 by Elizabeth Fentress and Hassan Limane]. American Journal of Archaeology, 125(4). https://doi.org/10.3764/ajaonline1254.Benton

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