during the three years of his reign, founding the city of Fes. He was assassinated in Volubilis in 791 on the orders of the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid. On his majority Idriss II removed to Fes which served as his new capital, depriving Volubilis of its last vestiges of political significance. A Muslim group known as the Rabedis, who had revolted in Córdoba in Al-Andalus (Andalusia in modern Spain), resettled at Volubilis in 818. Although people continued to live in Volubilis for several more centuries, it was probably almost deserted by the 14th century. Leo Africanus describes its walls and gates, as well as the tomb of Idris, guarded only by two or three castles. His body was subsequently removed to Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, , where a great mausoleum was built for it. The name of the city was forgotten and it was termed Ksar Faraoun, or the "Pharaoh's Castle", by the local people, alluding to a legend that the ancient Egyptians had built it. Nonetheless, some of its buildings remained standing, albeit ruined, until as late as the 17th century when Moulay Ismail ransacked the site to provide building material for his new imperial capital at Meknes. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake caused further severe destruction. However, English antiquarian John Windus had sketched the site in 1722. In his 1725 book A Journey to Mequinez, Windus described the scene: Visiting 95 years later in 1820, after the Lisbon earthquake had flattened the few buildings left standing, James Gray Jackson wrote: Walter Burton Harris, a writer for The Times, visited Volubilis during his travels in Morocco between 1887 and 1889, after the site had been identified by French archaeologists but before any serious excavations or restorations had begun. He wrote: Excavation, restoration and UNESCO listing Much of Volubilis was excavated by the French during their rule over French Morocco between 1912 and 1955, but the excavations at the site began decades earlier. From 1830, when the French conquest of Algeria began the process of extending French rule over much of northern, western and central Africa, archaeology was closely associated with French colonialism. The French army undertook scientific explorations as early as the 1830s and by the 1850s it was fashionable for French army officers to investigate Roman remains during their leave and spare time. By the late 19th century French archaeologists were undertaking an intensive effort to uncover northwest Africa's