Bab Mansour

Bab Mansour el Aleuj is the grand ceremonial gate of the imperial city of Meknès and widely considered the finest city gate in Morocco. Sultan Moulay Ismail commissioned it as the centrepiece of his ambitious capital-building project; construction was completed in 1732 by his son, just after the sultan's death, making it both the culmination of his reign and his architectural epitaph. The facade is faced with intricate green-and-white zellij tilework and Arabic calligraphic inscriptions, while the flanking marble columns were deliberately repurposed from the nearby Roman ruins of Volubilis — a deliberate gesture of imperial continuity across civilizations. Part of the UNESCO-listed medina of Meknès since 1996, the gate today houses a small contemporary art exhibition inside, and the broad Place el-Hedim in front serves as the lively gateway into the old city.