Tingi
Tingis (Latin; Greek: Τίγγις, Tingís) or Tingi (Ancient Berber: ⵜⵉⵏⴳⵉ), the ancient name of Tangier in Morocco, was an important Carthaginian, Moor, and Roman port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was eventually granted the status of a Roman colony and made the capital of the province of Mauretania Tingitana and, after Diocletian's reforms, the diocese of Hispania.
Legends[]
The Greeks claimed that Tingis had been named for a daughter of the titan Atlas, who was supposed to support the vault of heaven nearby. They claimed that the Berber legends comported with the stories of Hercules's labors, which carried him to North Africa and the North Atlantic to retrieve the golden apples of the Hesperides. Having killed her husband Antaeus and again condemned her father to eternally supporting the firmament, Hercules slept with Tinja and fathered the Berber hero Syphax. Syphax supposedly founded the port of Tingis and named it his mother's honor after her death.[1] The gigantic skeleton and tomb of Antaeus were tourist attractions for ancient visitors.[1] The Caves of Hercules, where he supposedly rested on Cape Spartel, remain one today.
History[]
Punic port[]
Tingis was founded in the early 5th century BC[citation needed] by Carthaginian colonists,[2] who variously recorded the name of their settlement as TNG (Punic: