Sijilmasa Ruins

The ruins of Sijilmasa — the medieval city that controlled the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan gold trade from the 8th to the 14th century. At its height it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, the point where Saharan gold, salt, and slaves were exchanged for Mediterranean goods. The ruins are unexcavated, low, and largely invisible — which makes the imaginative leap required to understand what was here all the more extraordinary.