1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mequinez

MEQUINEZ (the Spanish form of the Arabic Miknasa), a city of Morocco, situated 1600 ft. above the sea, about 70 m. from the west coast and 36 m. W.S.W. of Fez, on the road to Rabat, in 33° 56′ N., 5° 50′ W. The town wall with its four-cornered towers is pierced by nine gates, one, the Báb Bardain, with fine tile-work. A lower wall of wider circuit protects the luxuriant gardens in the outskirts. Mequinez at a distance appears a city of palaces, but it possesses few buildings of any note except the palace and the mosque of Mulai Ismail, which serves as the royal burying-place. The palace, founded in 1634, was described in 1821 by John Windus in his Journey to Mequinez (London 1825) as “about 4 m. in circumference, the whole building exceeding massy, and the walls in every part very thick; the outward one about a mile long and 25 ft. thick.” The interior is composed of oblong court-yards surrounded by buildings and arcades. These buildings are more or less square with pyramidal roofs ornamented outside with green glazed tiles, and inside with richly carved and painted woodwork in Mauresque style. The walls are tiled to a height of 4 or 5 ft., and above they are finished in plaster, whitewashed or carved into filigree work. The population numbers being between thirty and forty thousand. Idrisi, writing in A.D. 1100, calls the place Takarart, and describes it as an ordinary citadel, from which the town gradually developed, taking its name from the Miknasa Berbers.