The Labors of Hercules

 Tangier
Dec 162019
 

December 16, 2019

Cave of Hercules

The land entrance to the Cave of Hercules, just outside of Tangier.

The cave is part natural and part man-made. The man-made part was used by Berber people to cut stone wheels from the walls, to make millstones, thus expanding it considerably.

It was believed that the cave is one end of a subterranean ley tunnel over 15 miles long which passes under the Strait of Gibraltar and emerges at St. Michael’s Cave in Gibraltar. Legend has it that the Barbary macaques entered the Rock of Gibraltar from Morocco this way.

Mythological tradition also holds that the Roman god Hercules stayed and slept in this cave before doing his 11th labor, which was to get golden apples from the Hesperides Garden, which some ancient Greek writers said was located nearby at Lixus.

The water entrance to the Cave of Hercules

Inside the Caves of Hercules where you can see the markings where grinding wheels were removed.

Berber grinding wheels

Lixus

Lixus is an Amazigh (Berber) name that means “golden apples” in Arabic.

The amphitheater of Lixus

The city of Lixus is the oldest archaeological site in Morocco and one of the oldest Phoenician establishments in the western Mediterranean. The site itself was not open to the public until this year.

Lixus was first settled by the Canaanites in the 12th century BCE and was later controlled directly from Carthage. When Carthage’s empire fell to Rome during the Punic Wars, Lixus along with Chellah, and Mogador became outposts of the province of Mauretania Tingitana.

Lixus flourished during the Roman Empire, mainly when the emperor Claudius (CE 41-54) established the province of Africa with full rights for the citizens. Lixus was one of the few Roman cities in Berber Africa that had an amphitheater.

The Muslim invasions destroyed the Roman city.

Looking out to the Atlantic gives one a good idea of how the area has silted since Roman time.

Some ancient Greek writers placed the mythological garden of the Hesperides, where Hercules gathered the golden apples for Eurystheus, at Lixus. The name of the city was often mentioned by writers from Hanno the Navigator to the Geographer of Ravenna and confirmed by stamps found on its coins.

Most of Lixus has not been excavated, and so far only 10 percent of its 190 acres have been uncovered.  Lixus joined the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1995.

 

Tanks for making Garum a fermented fish sauce used as a condiment in the cuisines of ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium.

If you have not read the Didius Falco books by Lindsey Davis or enjoyed colatura di alici over pasta, you may not know what Garum is.  Here is an old recipe:

What is called liquamen is thus made: the intestines of fish are thrown into a vessel, and are salted; and small fish, especially atherinae, or small mullets, or maenae, or lycostomi, or any small fish, are all salted in the same manner; and they are seasoned in the sun, and frequently turned; and when they have been seasoned in the heat, the garum is thus taken from them. A small basket of close texture is laid in the vessel filled with the small fish already mentioned, and the garum will flow into the basket; and they take up what has been percolated through the basket, which is called liquamen; and the remainder of the feculence is made into allec.

– from the 10th-century Byzantine manual Geōponika: Agricultural pursuits, Vol. II, pp. 299–300; translated from the Greek by Thomas Owen; London 1806.

Assilah

A small town between Linux and Tangier is Assilah.

From 1912 to 1956, Asilah was part of Spanish Morocco. In  1978 the then-mayor, Mohamed Benaissa, and painter Mohamed Melehi were instrumental in organizing an art festival, the International Cultural Moussem of Asilah.  It is credited with having promoted urban renewal in Asilah and is one of the most important art festivals in the country. It played a role in raising the average monthly income from $50 in 1978 to $140 in 2014. The festival features local artwork and music and continues to attract large numbers of tourists.  There is a tradition of painting murals on the walls to be left until the next year’s festival.

Asilah is now a popular seaside resort, with modern holiday apartment complexes on the coast road leading to the town from Tangier. The old neighborhoods are restored and painted white, and the wealthy from Casablanca have their weekend getaways here.

When I visited it was absolutely empty, I was told by my driver it wakes up in the evening, however, I have a feeling, judging by the amount of truly excellent restoration I saw as I walked the town, it is really a weekend/summer type of community.

One of the more intriguing murals

The walls of the medina of Asilah still stand, intact. In fact, much restoration is occurring to keep them that way

Just a few fun sites around this sleepy town.

**

Cape Spartel

Not far from the Cave of Hercules is the Cape Spartel, the northwestern extremity of Africa’s Atlantic Coast.

The lighthouse at Cape Spartel

Built by Sultan Mohammed III in 1864, this lighthouse was maintained by Britain, France, Spain, and Italy until Morocco’s independence from France in 1956.

On a clear day, it is possible to look out on the horizon and see the meeting point of the dark blue Atlantic and the turquoise Mediterranean.

You may also see Gibraltar if the conditions are correct

Tangier: A city with a fascinating history

 Tangier
Dec 152019
 

December 14, 2019

Tangier (French Tanger, Spanish Tánger, Arabic Ṭanjah) has an interesting connection with the United States. Morocco was the first country to recognize the USA as an independent state after the revolutionary war and since Tangier served as Morocco’s diplomatic headquarters the United States dedicated its first consulate here during the George Washington administration. In 1821, the Legation Building in Tangier became the first piece of property acquired abroad by the U.S. government—a gift to the U.S. from Sultan Moulay Suliman. The building housed the United States Legation and Consulate for 140 years, the longest period any building abroad has been occupied as a United States diplomatic post. In 1980 the building was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark (the only one in a foreign country). While the building is now a museum run by a foundation, it is still owned by the US government.

Thanks to the fact that Tangier is the entryway to the Mediterranean it was first settled as a trading base by the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians.

The Vandals attacked from Spain in AD 429 taking the town from the Romans. They were followed by the Byzantines, and then the Arabs, with Tangier being passed between various Arab factions. Then the Portuguese arrived, only to hand it to the British 200 years later as a wedding gift for Charles II. Morocco regained control of the city in 1679, destroying much of the city in the process. Tangier remained under Morocco until the mid 19th century.

While the rest of Morocco was divided between France and Spain, Tangier was turned into an “International Zone”. France, Spain, Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and the USA all had a piece of the town. This lasted from 1912 until shortly after Moroccan independence in 1956, when the city was returned to the rest of the country. This period was temporarily interrupted on June 14, 1940, when Spain under the Franco dictatorship took advantage of the outbreak of World War II to occupy Tangier. All the existing institutions of the international zone were abolished and the city was annexed in full to the Spanish protectorate. This situation ended with the end of the war.

During this famous Interzone period, high brow and low brow expats flooded in, forming half the population, and a wild, anything-goes culture.

Tangier has always been very open to other religions as well.  The first Jews migrated to Tangier after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, a second wave of immigration occurred from Iberia during the 1492 Alhambra Decree. By 1925 Jews were assigned three out of the twenty-six seats on the Legislative Assembly giving them significant political power. Most Jews were not affected by the war having been offered protection by Mohammed V who stated: “We have no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.”

There is also a small Christian contingency in Tangier that worships at St. Andrews Church. In 1880, Hassan I of Morocco donated land to the British community to build a small Anglican church. The first was found insufficient to handle all of the parishioners with this new one being built in 1894 and consecrated in 1905. Interestingly it is dedicated to the Patron Saint of Scotland, rather than to Saint Cassius of Tangier.

The Lord’s Prayer in Arabic over the altar.  As Terence MacCarthy said, “It would appear unlikely that the architect, building committee, priest or congregation, ever questioned the linguistic or theological propriety of this decorative identification of the Christan God of the New Testament who declared Christ to be his beloved Son with Koranic Allah, who castigates those who so testify as monstrous blasphemers.”

The interior is designed as a fusion of numerous styles, notably Moorish. The belltower, shaped like a minaret, overlooks the adjacent cemetery.

The minaret type bell tower peeking above the trees.

You enter the church grounds after bursting out of the insane hustle of the medina, through a small gate and into a quiet garden oasis.  This oasis, is in fact, the graveyard.  This is what I came to see.

Buried here, and adding to the stories of the time when Tangier was an anything-goes community are some interesting people.  David Herbert a former Consular-Warden, referred to by Ian Fleming as ‘the Queen of Tangier, who was known for his vibrant personality, frequent lavish parties, good taste, and ruthless snobbery’. The manager of the parade bar, Jay Haselwood, who according to Truman Capote, “Served up the asses of Arab lads and lassies – without charge of course, just as a courtesy of the house”, and Colonel William Ellis, who is reputed to have poisoned both his wives.

The gravesite of Sir Harry MacLean (1848–1920). a Scottish soldier, and instructor to the Moroccan Army.

There are also a large number of more “socially acceptable” people buried in the cemetery. Such as Emily Keene, who introduced the cholera vaccine to Morocco. The journalist, explorer, and socialite Walter Harris. There is a memorial for Squadron Leader Thomas Kirby Green, one of the prisoners of war shot during the ‘Great Escape’. There is also a sobering section of war graves of entire downed aircrews, their headstones attached shoulder to shoulder.

Tangier had its heyday making its mark on literary history that will most likely never be seen again. William Burroughs, high on drugs, wrote Naked Lunch while living in Tangier. America writer Paul Bowles, whose first novel, The Sheltering Sky, about Tangier, lived here for over fifty years. Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Ibn Battuta, Samuel Pepys, Alexandre Dumas, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Walter Harris, Jean Genet, and Canadian writer Brion Gysin also called Tangier home at times.

Gran Teatro Cervantes was built in 1913 by the Spanish and dedicated to Miguel de Cervantes, is today most noted for its dilapidated Art Deco facade. The theatre was once considered one of the most prestigious in North Africa.

When the Interzone period ended, Tangier entered a long period of decline. The city was nothing more than a dreary port overrun with criminality. Even their King, Hassan II, hated it and refused to fund anything in Tangier. The remnants of this period abound in the older part of town.

Since 2007, however, Tangier has been the site of major development, most notably its new port, Tanger Med, and the high-speed TGV train line to Casablanca that I used to get here. This $320 million infrastructure program will, alas, benefit primarily the upscale and suburban neighborhoods of the city.

The TGV that presently goes from Casablanca to Tangier

The port sits well below the older part of town

Inside of the train station is a giant shopping mall with McDonald’s, Starbucks and high-end stores. It is 10 miles away from the old part of town. Serving the wealthier suburbs.

On the top of the hill, in the oldest part of Tangier, sits the Kasbah, surrounded, spilling down the hill by the medina.  While poverty is quite obvious in these areas, the Kasbah holds several very high-end designer boutiques. Just outside are several more, while the government money does not appear to be entering this part of the town, quite obviously these artists and business owners believe there is a market here.

Here you will find Boutique Bab Kasbah showcasing the designs of Salima Abdel-Wahab, Topolina the Tangier shop of french designer Isabelle Topolina, Galerie Laure Welfling, and Au Fil de Tanger just to name a very few of the great spots I have tripped over.

There are also a couple of very chicly designed restaurants, even if the food doesn’t quite live up to the modern hip atmosphere.