Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Moroccan archaeologists have made new underwater discoveries off the coast of Safi, a city along Morocco’s Atlantic Coast.
The Moroccan Association for Underwater Archaeological Research and Protection made the discoveries. Founding member and Vice-President Redouane Bourga told Morocco’s state media that the findings could date back to the 2nd century B.C. or even between B.C. 2700 and B.C. 900, during the Bronze Age.
The Safi-based archaeological association hopes the discoveries will bring light to the lost city of Tighalin. Archaeologists aim to determine the borders of the centuries-old submerged city and how its inhabitants used to live.
Bourga explained to the press that the coast of Safi is teeming with a varied archaeological heritage and underwater archaeological treasures. Archaeologists in Morocco have already explored the region extensively, but are still working to make new discoveries related to the underwater city of Tighalin.
The Moroccan Association for Underwater Archaeological Research and Protection has numerous discoveries under its belt.
The association discovered an underwater military shipwreck off the coast of Safi and a wrecked British steamboat submerged near Agadir. The association believes the British “Baynyassa SS” ran aground in the summer of 1918 off the beach of Sidi Toual, 15 kilometers south of Agadir.
The association also discovered the cannons of the Sekkala de Safi and the place where the ship “Nicolas Paquet” ran aground at Cape Spartel, near Tangier.
Thirty kilometers from Safi, in Cap Beddouza, the association uncovered fossilized human bones from the Ain El Moucha tribe and prehistoric caves. The Moroccan archaeology team also found the remains of a warship more than four centuries old in the same region.
The association advocates for the protection of such archaeological treasures, arguing their preservation is essential to the country’s national heritage.
The underwater city of Tighalin, in particular, suggests an ancestral civilizational richness Morocco has yet to fully realize. Further archaeological discoveries in the region will serve to consolidate Safi as a historical city that once operated as an essential trading hub between Africa and Europe.
