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apollonaut. Built by People Who've Been

An Apollonaut travel guide

The place behind the detail.

A harbour battery, a sea gate and a row of bronze cannons offer several ways into the story of the Skala du Port.

The square tower of the Skala du Port with its corner turrets
On this page

A port for a new city

In the 1760s Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah founded Essaouira as a port to strengthen trade with Europe. UNESCO describes its medina as an exceptional example of a late 18th-century fortified town, built on the principles of European military architecture of the time.

Several architects worked on the new city, among them the French engineer Théodore Cornut and Ahmed al-Inglizi.

A battery on the harbour

The Skala du Port was built in 1769. Its two fortified wings, each about 200 metres long, meet at a right angle: one overlooks the quay and the dry dock, the other faces the islands offshore.

It is joined to the Porte de la Marine, the gate between the medina and the port, and its bronze cannons were mostly made in Spain, with some from the Netherlands.

Defended and protected

In August 1844 the harbour battery took part in the defence of the city when a French fleet bombarded Mogador. A dahir, or royal decree, of 30 August 1924 listed the Skala du Port as a historic monument.

This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones. Sources checked 8 November 2026.

Read at the source

Sources & further reading

Links lead to the original publishers.

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