What is "volubilis"

Volubilis (, ) is a partly excavated Berber and Roman city in Morocco situated near Meknes, between Fes and Rabat, and commonly considered as the ancient capital of the kingdom of Mauretania. Built in a fertile agricultural area, it developed from the 3rd century BC onward as an Amazigh, then proto- Carthaginian, settlement before being the capital of the kingdom of Mauretania. It grew rapidly under Roman rule from the 1st century AD onward and expanded to cover about with a circuit of walls. The city gained a number of major public buildings in the 2nd century, including a basilica, temple and triumphal arch. Its prosperity, which was derived principally from olive growing, prompted the construction of many fine town-houses with large mosaic floors.

The city fell to local tribes around 285 and was never retaken by Rome because of its remoteness and indefensibility on the south-western border of the Roman Empire. It continued to be inhabited for at least another 700 years, first as a Latinised Christian community, then as an early Islamic settlement. In the late 8th century it became the seat of Idris ibn Abdallah, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty and the state of Morocco. By the 11th century Volubilis had been abandoned after the seat of power was relocated to Fes. Much of the local population was transferred to the new town of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, about from Volubilis.

The ruins remained substantially intact until they were devastated by an earthquake in the mid-18th century and subsequently looted by Moroccan rulers seeking stone for building Meknes. It was not until the latter part of the 19th century that the site was definitively identified as that of the ancient city of Volubilis. During and after the period of French rule over Morocco, about half of the site was excavated, revealing many fine mosaics, and some of the more prominent public buildings and high-status houses were restored or reconstructed. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed for being "an exceptionally well preserved example of a large Roman colonial town on the fringes of the Empire".

"Volubilis" ("intertwined") is a series of marble sculptures by French sculptor Alfred Boucher (1850–1934), mentor to Camille Claudel and friend of Auguste Rodin.

First exhibited at the Salon in 1896 (probably the example in Musée des beaux-arts de Troyes), Volubilis appeared in several variations on the theme of the female body emerging from a roughly carved surround.

Boucher reworked the idea over many years. It was first explored three years before the 1896 exhibit in his Tete de Diane. The theme continues with Aux Champs exhibited in 1897. The sculptural potency of this format continued to intrigue Boucher, whose later revision in 1912 is entitled La Reve.

The concept of a beautiful creature evolving out of a piece of crudely carved rock is one of exciting contrasts, a kind of Pygmalion process whereby the sculptor's Muse comes alive, the sensuality heightened by the contrast between the unfinished and finished, the severity of the rock against the smoothness of the skin. It is achieved by carving in three-quarter relief, a method exploited by Boucher's contemporary and friend Auguste Rodin, but drawing its inspiration from Michelangelo's unfinished Slaves.