The Necropolis with Storks

The storks arrived before the tourists and have never left.

Chellah sits on the southern edge of Rabat, behind crenellated walls that were built by the Marinids in the 14th century to enclose something much older. Beneath the gardens and the crumbling minarets lie the foundations of Sala Colonia, a Roman settlement that dates to the 1st century BC. The Romans built a forum, a bath house, a main street. They left inscriptions. They left oil presses. Then they left.

The Marinids arrived a thousand years later and built a royal necropolis on top of the Roman one. Sultan Abu al-Hasan built a mosque, a madrasa, and a zaouia. His wife, Shams al-Duha — a Christian convert of uncertain origin, possibly English — was buried here in 1349. Her tombstone, carved with Arabic calligraphy, still stands.

Then the Marinids fell too. And the site was abandoned.

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which travelled across the Strait and shattered cities along the Moroccan coast, damaged what remained. After that, Chellah was left to the trees, the cats, and the storks. White storks nested on top of the ruined minaret and the broken Roman columns. They still nest there now — enormous platform nests visible from outside the walls, the birds standing in silhouette against the sky.

Today you walk through the Marinid gate — massive, decorated with carved stone — and descend through gardens into layers of ruin. The Roman columns sit beside Islamic arches. Fig trees push through mosaic floors. There is a pool that local women visit to feed eels, believing it will help them conceive. The sacred and the pragmatic overlap.

The Moroccan government restored parts of the site and opened it as a venue for concerts and cultural events. The Chellah Jazz Festival has been held among the ruins.

But the real residents are the storks. They have claimed the highest points and they are not negotiating.