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Some time after the departure of the Roman administration from the southern half Mauretania Tingitana the population of Volubilis seems to have become concentrated on the eastern slope of the hill. This may have been due to the failure of the aqueduct, so that the inhabitants of the town would have depended on the Oued Khomane and wells for their water supply. Around the fifth century a new city wall was built, separating this area from the old city center. The walls enclose 18 ha. within the old Roman town. Outside were cemeteries, particularly in the area of the Arch of Triumph. Christian funerary inscriptions from this cemetery show that some of the population still spoke Latin, and used dates based on the foundation of the Roman province. According to medieval tradition, the conquering Oqba Ibn Nafi, having made peace with the Romano-Berber Julian at Tangiers, continued on to Walila, where he fought Berber tribes. There was an Abbasid ribat, and coins were struck with the name Walila. It is thus likely that when Idris arrived at the site in 788, a Romano-Berber population still occupied the site. Abbasid control of the city was hardly secure, for Idris was welcomed there by the tribe of the Awraba and its leader. However, we can be reasonably certain that the site was expanded and reorganized as his capital. The little baths excavated by Rosenberger and El Khayari clearly form part of this expansion. Their lack of any distinctive ‘Ummayad’ traits, and their apparent derivation from the baths of Roman North Africa, again imply a substantial continuity in the local population.
After the removal of the capital to Fez, occupation continued at Walila, still the capital of the little principality of Al awdiya. Al Bakri relates that exiles from Cordoba arrived there in 818 C.E.: their descendents were still on the site in his day . However, Al Idrissi refers to it as in ruins (Nuzhat al-Muštaq, I, 224).
Excavations currently underway are examining the Idrissid public buildings outside the walls.

Baking and milling flour was one of the principle activities for which we have evidence at Volubiulis. This daily activity linked the city to its countryside, rich in cereal cultivation. By the 1980's sixteen baker's shops had been found in the city, along with around twenty mills and querns found scattered around the city. The grinding elements themselves present a variety of types and forms. They were cut from a volcanic stone found in the Middle Atlas, outside of the zone of Roman control.

The best-preserved installations are that of the Pre-Roman Forum, the shop near the House of the Bronze Bust, those of the House of Flavius Germanus, and those of Insula 10.

The Mauretanian rampart (GREEN) is seen for a short stretch of 77m. under the tumulus, and in its immediate vicinity. The visible sections are composed of foundations in cut stone, with an elevation in mud brick. The collapse of this upper section is clearly visible in the section cut into the tumulus by previous excavations.

(RED) An irregular polygon 2,613 metres long, the Roman rampart encloses 40 hectares. Built of rubble masonry faced with ashlars, it had 6 main gates flanked by towers and 24 other towers. Its construction dates from 168/169 C.E., during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, who also built the city walls of Rome

An aqueduct leading from a large spring to the northeast brought water for the town.

It was reconstructed a number of times, but its earliest phase may be dated to around 60-80 C.E.

Water from secondary channels fed the larger houses, the baths and the public fountains.

The religious stuctures of Volubilis are spread across the site and the chronological periods of its occupation. Some of these structures testify to a continuous evolution from the Mauretanian period onward. Six temples have been found: temple B, known as the temple of Saturn, temple C to the east of the tumulus, temple D in the monumental center, the twin temples of the western quarter and the Punic temple to the east of the Capitolium, and the Capitolium itself.

These structures show very different plans, and bear witness to a wide variety of inspirations, as well as to the individual styles of the local artisan tradition.

58 oil-pressing complexes are known from Volubilis, distributed throughout the town. In general, a pressing complex comprises the following elements: a mill for crushing the olives, a press composed of a counterweight, a cross bar (prelum), a pulley the upright supports for the prelum, and a decantation basin. These structures are found within a clearly defined working space.

The presses of Volubilis use the same principle as the majority of the presses in the Roman Mediterranean. After crushing, the olive paste was loaded into woven baskets. These were then stacked in the centre of the press, and the prelum was cranked down on top of the stack with the aid of the pulley. The oil that ran out of the baskets was channelled into the decantation basin. Here water was added, and the oil that floated to the surface was ladled directly into amphorae. The decantation basins were periodically emptied through run off channels. We can see some development in the technology at Volubilis: the counterweights for the prelum seem to have shifted from a rectangular block to a cylindrical form around the beginning of the second century C.E. so as to increase their efficiency.

The uniform technology of the Volubilis oil complexes seems to testify to the cultural coherence of the community. There number, however, is striking, as is their integration into most of the largest houses. Oil was clearly one of the major sources of wealth for the town. The production of transport amphorae from the end of the second century B.C.E. demonstrates the early growth of the oil trade.

Baths were an essential component of the ancient urban landscape. Along with the forum and the shops they were part and parcel of the social life of the town. The baths all followed a typical plan. One entered through a vestibule, then proceeded to the changing room (apodytermium). Through the cold room (frigidarium) one passed into a warm room (tepidarium) and through it into the hot rooms (caldaria, laconica). Here one remained until a sweat had been worked up, which was scraped off with an instrument called a striglium. The bather then returned to the cold room, to rince himself off in the plunge baths and to relax. A palestra served for exercise and sports, which would take place before the baths.

Volubilis possesses four baths: the large baths of Gallienus, the baths of the Capitol, the northern baths and the baths of the House of the Cistern. These were all substantial buildings, destined for a large number of bathers. The hot rooms were heated by ovens from which hot air passed underneath the pavements and up through the walls through pipes made of hollow bricks. Brick pillars supported the floors of the hot rooms, creating spaces (hypocaust) for the circulation of the air.

The same techniques were used for the little bath to the southeast of the town built in the eighth century C.E. This structure is extremely important insofar as it demonstrates the technical continuity between the Roman period and the early Middle Ages. It is the only bath of this date in North Africa

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