Moroccan archaeologist Abdallah Fili has been invited to present his findings on trade and gold from the medieval Sahara period in Chicago at Northwestern’s Block Museum. The week long conference is part of the “Caravans of Gold,” exhibition which opened in January 2019.
Fili who is also a professor in El Jadida at the Chouaib Doukkali University will join other archaeologists from research institutes in Mali, Nigeria, and the UK to answer questions about medieval Africa. Fili has excavated fragments of materials like glass, lusterware, and terracotta from Morocco’s ancient city Sijilmassa. Sijilmassa is 90 kilometers south of Errachidia in eastern Morocco.
Morocco’s western Sahara has a lot of unexplored history. In 2018, the oldest-known remains of homo sapiens were discovered at Jbel Irhoud site and in Febraury 2019, Morocco’s Ministry of Culture and Communication announced a celebration for Sijilmassa 1,300 years of the history.