Could Rusadir, that is, Melilla, truly be a city of Amazigh (Moorish) origin and not Phoenician?
Today, I just read the following information in the Faro de Melilla, which the EFE agency had already reported a month ago: archaeological discoveries in the Cathedral of the city of Málaga [1] have uncovered objects (ceramic pieces such as pots, bowls, vases, or plates, and coins) dating back 5,000 years, which confirm and extend its origins by more than a thousand years than previously thought. This definitively proves that the origin of Málaga dates back to before the arrival of the Phoenicians.
In school textbooks, both in Spain and Morocco, it is taught that the first cities founded in their respective territories were the work of the Phoenicians, as if the Maurus (from which the term “Moors” comes, meaning the Amazighs of North Africa) and the Iberians had no ingenious capacity to establish urban centers. Thus, the oldest coastal cities on both shores of the western Mediterranean, like our city of Rusadir (Melilla) or the cities of Tamuda (Tetouan), Tingis (Tangier), Lixus (Larache), Sala (Rabat), Malaca (Málaga), and Gadès (Cádiz), were attributed to the Phoenicians, even though we know that they did nothing more than entertain and prosper through maritime trade with the cities they encountered along the Mediterranean coasts! One of the proofs reached by some Moroccan archaeologists is the lack of Phoenician tombs in these urbanized centers. I advanced this archaeological fact about two years ago in an interview with Melilla Television [2].
On May 9, 2017, the Cervantes Institute in Rabat organized a colloquium on the topic of “What relation do the Amazighs have with the Iberians?” with the participation of the great immunologist and genetic anthropologist Dr. Antonio Arnaïz Villena and myself, and we concluded that before the arrival of Christianity to the Iberian Peninsula and Islam to North Africa, the peoples of both shores of the western Mediterranean were one and the same [3]. A single people whose communities exchanged populations in ancient times, from prehistory and through the Neolithic period with the rise of agriculture, as recently discovered at the Assif Beht (Oued Beht) site, a large agricultural complex [4,5]. From agriculture, they moved on to urbanization!
In conclusion, Málaga, like Rusadir, was founded by our ancient indigenous populations, respectively Amazighs and Iberians, whose shared history we must celebrate and encourage more Hispano-Moroccan archaeological discoveries.
By Rachid RAHA, President of the “David Montgomery Hart” Foundation for Amazigh Studies
Note:
[2]- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ep9zZ3Rr28
