Ansamed
In the desert region of Errachidia, it can happen to run into children selling fossils or big stones tracing the story of when the sea 10 million years ago covered the Sahara.
In the north, between Rabat, Fes and Meknes, traffic circles round the remains of the Roman domination: fragments of mosaics, small sculptures and splinters of capitals.
A warning cry denouncing this situation has finally been heard and Morocco is drawing a law to defend its cultural heritage besieged for hundreds of years.
Paleontologists, archaeologists and scholars from all over the world have been rallying against this dire state of affairs for years but their calls had never been acted upon before.
A new law intends to change all this.
The measure submitted by the government intends first of all to define ”a new concept of cultural heritage”, said Youssef Khyara, an official at the Culture Ministry.
The law entails the creation of a national heritage registry and an advisory commission will be the institutional body coordinating all programmes and projects that have something to do with cultural heritage, restoration and conservation as well as archaeological research.
The legal proposal which is currently being drafted also establishes a heritage police tasked with protecting Moroccan sites and keeping away improvised Indiana Jones.
Punitive measures against transgressors caught while plundering and degrading sites or selling ancient artifacts are also envisaged in the law.)
