Necropolis van Chellah

The Chellah lies on the left bank of the Bou Regreg, about 2 km from the centre of Rabat, on a site occupied since the 7th to 5th centuries BC and known to Roman writers as Sala^2,3. Excavations have uncovered temples, baths, a basilica, a forum and a capitol of the ancient town³. According to Discover Islamic Art, Roman Sala Colonia was deserted in the 8th century and in ruins by the 10th². The Marinid sultans later made the site a royal necropolis, built at the end of the 13th century according to FSPCR and surrounded by imposing ramparts^3,2. Discover Islamic Art names the sultans Abu Yusuf Ya’qub and Abu al-Hasan as its patrons².

A Kufic inscription on the frame of the main gate records that the ramparts were begun under Abu Sa’id Uthman (r. 1310-1331) and completed by his son Abu al-Hasan in 739 AH (1339)². Abu al-Hasan (r. 1331-1351), known as the Black Sultan, has his funerary chamber (khalwa) here, near a marble stone dedicated to his wife Shams al-Duha, a European convert². A study of this qubba by María Antonia Martínez Núñez, Patrice Cressier and two colleagues treats it as a key building in Abu al-Hasan’s programme to enlarge and monumentalise the dynastic necropolis⁴. The earthquake of 1755 left most of the Marinid buildings in ruins, and the site was abandoned in the 18th century^2,3.

The necropolis is enclosed by a wall of irregular plan, with sides of about 300 m, entered through a richly decorated gate². Its two flanking bastions are half-octagonal at the base and turn square at the top through muqarnas corbels, under merlons capped with small pyramids². The narrow, pointed horseshoe arch has plain voussoirs framed by archivolts of interlaced bands, finely carved floral ornament marked by two shells, and a broad knotwork frieze above the inscription band². The passage turns once inside, and Discover Islamic Art judges its defensive role slight despite the guard rooms and the wall walk on the ramparts².

Inside the walls survive a mosque whose gateway is faced with faience mosaic and whose minaret is soberly decorated, the funerary chamber of Abu al-Hasan, decorated outside with a muqarnas canopy, and a zawiya, a house of religious teaching². The zawiya has a courtyard with a central pool paved with ceramic tiles, ringed by cells behind galleries on marble columns, and an oratory whose mihrab is surrounded by a semicircular passage². A stele known as Lalla Chella, after the patron saint of the site, also survives². Excavations uncovered a Muslim quarter with squares, houses and public buildings, which shows that the Chellah was a true funerary town and at times a military post².

Inside the Marinid ramparts the remains of Roman Sala and of the necropolis lie side by side^2,3. FSPCR describes the abandoned site as a garden of orange trees and wild plants, among which rise the white domes of holy men’s tombs³. The Marinid buildings themselves are ruins: the mosque with its minaret, the zawiya courtyard with its tiled pool, and the funerary chamber of Abu al-Hasan with its muqarnas canopy². FSPCR reports that a recent restoration has renewed the site³.