This Thursday, November 16, 2006, Ronald Messier, Professor of Middle East history at Vanderbilt University, talked about Medieval Morocco in our Faraway Places series at Barnes & Noble. Prof. Messier directed the excavation of the ancient city of Sijilmasa in southeastern Morocco, famous for its gold trade and its contacts with Timbuktu and other cities in West Africa. Since 2004 he has been at work excavating medieval Aghmat 30 km from Marrakech, the chief commercial and cultural center of the region prior to the arrival of the Almoravids.
If you missed out the lecture, you may view a photo album of the event and download the Podcast of his talk.