Essaouira is a port city and resort on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. Its medina (old town) is protected by 18th-century seafront ramparts called the Skala de la Kasbah and it was one of my favourite places in Morocco. Essaouira's first inhabitants were Berbers who named the city Amagdul meaning "the well kept". Subsequently it became an important trading port for the Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the 1st Century BC. The Romans arrived, renaming it Tamusiga and created a thriving business with the Tyrian purple dye extracted from murex shells found around the islands. The name of the "Iles Purpuraires" dates from this time. A gateway between Africa and the Occident, the town was an important trading centre and became know as the "Port of Timbuktu". The Portuguese built the Castello Real in 1506 during their brief stay, after which the name was changed to Mogdura paying homage to a local saint called Sidi Magdul. In 1628 it was still a relatively small town, but grew larger and more important with the efforts of Jewish traders, "les négociants du roi" brought to the city by the visionary Sultan Mohamed Ben Abdellah. The sultan renamed the town again, this time to Souira "the small fortress". He summoned the French architect Théodore Cornut to build a commercial harbour in 1765. The French renamed the city Mogador at the beginning of the 20th century during the Protectorate. After they left in the 1950s the town regained its Arabic name of Souira but with a grammatical modification, of Essaouira "the well drawn"