Aït Benhaddou
Interesting facts
- During the French protectorate the ksar was nicknamed 'the Mont-Saint-Michel of the Chleuhs', likening it to the famous Norman island abbey.
- According to local tradition, it is named after Amghar Ben Haddou, a chief said to have ruled the site in Almoravid times, in the 11th century.
- Its earth-and-straw walls erode easily in rain, and an abandoned ksar of this kind can begin to crumble within a few decades.
- UNESCO credits the ksar with keeping its authenticity because builders still use traditional earth techniques and have largely avoided concrete.
- Film work helped save it: Hollywood productions are among the reasons the ksar has been extensively restored in modern times.
- Its screen roles include the James Bond film The Living Daylights, The Jewel of the Nile, The Mummy, Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator II.
- Biblical epics came here too, among them Jesus of Nazareth (1977), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Son of God (2014).
- The valley route it guarded led north towards Telouet, the mountain stronghold of the powerful Glaoui family.
- The protected core of the World Heritage site covers only about three hectares, inside a buffer zone of roughly 16 hectares.
- The upper walls of the tower houses are decorated with geometric motifs worked in mud brick, giving the kasbahs their patterned crowns.
Why it is worth it
Aït Benhaddou is an entire fortified village made of earth, stacked up a hillside above the Ounila river on the southern side of the High Atlas. From the opposite bank it reads as a single sculpted mass: tiers of flat-roofed houses and tall kasbahs with crenellated corner towers, all in the same red-ochre clay as the hill beneath them, climbing to a fortified granary at the top. At low sun the walls turn the colour of embers, and the whole ksar looks as if it had grown out of the ground rather than been built on it.
Its location explains its existence. The ksar sits on the old caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech, which crossed the Atlas by the Tizi n'Tichka pass, and the site has been fortified since at least the 11th century. The buildings visible today are younger - none is thought to predate the 17th century - because earth architecture must be continually repaired and rebuilt. Walls are of rammed earth, adobe and clay brick framed with timber; in the taller kasbahs the lower storeys are rammed earth and the upper ones lighter adobe, to ease the load on the walls. Within the walls are houses, several kasbahs, a mosque and a caravanserai, and outside them Muslim and Jewish cemeteries.
The collective granary, the agadir, crowns the hill, and the climb to it is the best walk in the ksar: up stepped lanes between the houses to a summit with views over the river, the palm gardens and the desert plateau towards the mountains. UNESCO inscribed the ksar in 1987 as an outstanding example of the earthen architecture of southern Morocco.
Most families have long since moved to the newer village across the river, linked since 2011 by a footbridge, and only a few still live inside the walls. The emptier lanes have made Aït Benhaddou a favourite of film-makers: David Lean shot parts of Lawrence of Arabia here, it appears in Gladiator as the provincial town where Maximus is sold as a slave and for the slaver city of Yunkai in Game of Thrones, and dozens of other productions have used it since the 1960s.
Getting there
Aït Benhaddou lies in the province of Ouarzazate, about 25 km from Ouarzazate International Airport (OZZ), and is reached by road from Ouarzazate; the route from Marrakech crosses the Atlas by the Tizi n'Tichka pass. Visitors cross the river from the modern village on foot by the footbridge.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Aït Benhaddou is a historic ighrem or ksar along the former caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakesh in Morocco. It is considered a great example of Moroccan earthen clay architecture and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
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