Al-Mansuriya was a royal residence near Kairouan

Kairouan

Kairouan , also known as Kirwan or al-Qayrawan , is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia. Referred to as the Islamic Cultural Capital, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city was founded by the Arabs around 670...

, Tunisia

Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

, and the seat of Fatimid

Fatimid

The Fatimid Islamic Caliphate or al-Fāṭimiyyūn was a Berber Shia Muslim caliphate first centered in Tunisia and later in Egypt that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz from 5 January 909 to 1171.The caliphate was ruled by the Fatimids, who established the...

 government from the time of Ismail al-Mansur

Ismail al-Mansur

Ismāʿīl al-Manṣūr was the third Caliph of the Fatimids in Ifriqiya .- History :Ismāʿīl was born in 913 in Raqqada near Kairouan and succeeded his father Abū l-Qāṣim al-Qā'im in 946. The Fatimid realm found itself deep in crisis due to the revolt of Abū Yazīd...

The new residence was founded in 946 by al-Mansur before the eventual victory over Abu Yazid

Abu Yazid

Abū Yazīd Mukhallad ibn Kayrād , nicknamed Ṣāhib al-Himār "Possessor of the donkey", was a Kharijite Berber of the Banu Ifran tribe who led a rebellion against the Fatimids in Ifriqiya starting in 944...

 and replaced Mahdia

Mahdia

Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax. It is important for the associated fish-processing industry, as well as weaving. It is the capital of Mahdia Governorate.- History :...

 as the capital of the empire. The city was planned as circular construction after the model of Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, with the palace of the Fatimids in the centre. The building materials were mostly taken from the old Aghlabid

Aghlabid

The Aghlabids were a dynasty of emirs, members of the Arab tribe of Bani Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a century, until overthrown by the new power of the Fatimid.-History:...

 residence of Raqadda. It was completed under Al-Muizz

Ma'ad al-Muizz Li-Deenillah

Ma‘ādh Abū Tamīm al-Mu‘izz li Dīn Allāh , also known as al-Moezz, was the fourth Fatimid Caliph and 14th Ismaili imam, and reigned from 953 to 975. It was during his caliphate that the center of power of the Fatimid dynasty was moved from Ifriqiya to the newly conquered Egypt...

, who ensured the water supply with the construction of an aqueduct.

Apart from the courtiers and slave troops, 14,000 Kutama

Kutama

The Kutama were a powerful Berber tribe, in the region of Jijel , a member of the great Sanhaja confederation of the Maghrib and the armed body of the Fatimid Caliphate.-Origins of the Kutama:...

 tribespeople were settled there. After the Fatimids based themselves in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 in the newly-founded capital of Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 in 969, Al-Mansuriya remained the capital of the Zirids, although it was reduced to rubble in a Sunni uprising in 1016. During the invasion of the Banu Hilal

Banu Hilal

The Banu Hilal were a confederation of Arabian Bedouin tribes that migrated from Upper Egypt into North Africa in the 11th century, having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Zirids for abandoning Shiism. Other authors suggest that the tribes left the grasslands on the upper Nile because of...

 the royal residence was finally moved to Mahdia

Mahdia

Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax. It is important for the associated fish-processing industry, as well as weaving. It is the capital of Mahdia Governorate.- History :...

 in 1053. The city was plundered and subsequently served as a quarry for the inhabitants of Kairouan

Kairouan

Kairouan , also known as Kirwan or al-Qayrawan , is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia. Referred to as the Islamic Cultural Capital, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city was founded by the Arabs around 670...

.

The first French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

excavations took place in 1921, becoming a Franco-Tunisian project in 1972.