Rabat: Chellah

The site of the Chellah was initially the site of the Phoenician city Sala, which then was taken over by the Romans. The town of Sala remained in use after the Romans left and yielded the areas to the Christian Berbers. The arabs arrived in the 7th century and took over the town. The town included the great mosque, finished in 1284, and a cemetery. The area was largely abandoned and then many of the buildings destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The ruins are a mix of Roman and Arab, and is settled by a group of very proprietary storks.