Around Sijilmasa there are deposits of gold and silver. The gold is found like plants, and it is said that the wind blows it away.
—Al-Ya‘qubi, 9th century
Founded in the 8th century, Sijilmasa sits along the northern edge of the Sahara Desert in southeastern Morocco, adjacent to present-day Rissani. It lies in the Tafilalt Oasis, a basin of alluvial soils. Sijilmasa was a vital link in the African gold trade. Its mint struck gold coins as early as the 10th century, and evidence strongly suggests that West African gold passed through the area by the 4th century. While much of Sijilmasa was abandoned in the late 14th century, parts of the city, such as the great mosque, continued to be used until the turn of the 20th century.
Excavations at Sijilmasa have revealed the remains of a citadel, an ore-processing site, a mosque, and an elite residence where the small gold filigree ring in the nearby case was found. A caravan market, Souk Ben Akla, was located three miles west of the city on the banks of the Rheris River.
Vessel glass is among the most common fragment excavated from sites around the Sahara. Delicate colored glass vessels were made in North Africa as well as in the Middle East and Europe.
Sijilmasa was a sizeable and wealthy urban center in its heyday. The Andalusian historian and geographer Abu ‘Ubayd al-Bakri (d. 1094) described the city as “a wall with twelve gates. Within are beautiful houses, many having gardens, magnificent public buildings, a mosque that is solidly built, and baths that are poorly built.” This fragment of painted plaster bears a portion of an inscription from the Qur’an that would have read in full, “On no soul doth God place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns.” It was found at the site of an elite residence of the ninth or tenth century. Just a century or two later, a mosque was built on the same location.
