Global Heritage Fund’s emergency outreach initiative centers on the immediate restoration of two collective granaries in Amtoudi, agadir Aguellouy and agadir Id Issa. Both of these granaries have sustained significant damage as a result of the 2014 floods, and are thus prime candidates for preservation by GHF.

“Do you see those three mountains, there, in the distance?” Achmed asks me. Squinting above the mirages dancing about like fiery sprites in the hot desert sky, I descry three sandstone pillars rising independently out of the rock. “We call them the Three Widows. Men used to stay on top of them. They were, how do you say…” he fumbles. “Guards?” I offer. “Yes, guards. They guarded the villages from thieves and bad men.” Sentinels above the surrounding countryside, the Widows present a panorama of unrestricted vision, offering miles upon miles of keen insight into the surrounding wastes for those brave enough to climb their precipitous heights, and resilient enough to live in solitude on their flat, uninviting tops.

It is in country such as this that the Berbers have always made their home. The high desert spires and sheer, imposing rock faces of Morocco’s Anti-Atlas mountains present the perfect environment for this rugged and hardy people, inured to the solitary mountain life and baptized in the desert’s endless tribulations. “The whole life” wrote The Times correspondent Walter Harris in 1921, “was one of warfare and gloom. Every tribe had its enemies, every family had its blood-feuds, and ever man his would-be murderer.”

I watched the Widows again, later that night, from the spare but comfortable accommodations of my gite, a small traveler’s shelter characteristic of the Atlas Mountains. As it set in the west, the sun illuminated the pillars in dazzling light, chiseling them anew from the growing darkness of the sky. Although bare and lifeless now, mountaintops with such defensive capabilities would have been ripe for more than just watchmen.

The prudent caution for life that inspired the vigilance of the past extended to the livelihood of the Berber tribes as well. In response to the need for a secure place to store their food and valuable possessions – everything from barley and oil to silver, jewels, and carpets – the local Berber tribes developed communal granaries. These fortified igoudar (singular agadir) helped to protect the tribes from floods, desert marauders, and clashes among one another. While precise dates are not forthcoming, it is assumed that the agadir tradition is more than one thousand years old, originating in the period when the tribes of the Anti-Atlas were still nomadic.

The first igoudar were built, or more accurately found, to suit the needs of itinerant nomads. It may be too charitable to describe these retrofitted caves as depositories, but the small warrens nevertheless served important storage functions during their owners’ long absences. As nomadic communities became settled into a pastoral way of life, the igoudar followed suit, increasing in both complexity and inaccessibility in tandem with the changing needs of their makers. A 1998 article from Geographical described one agadir as, “a telltale watchtower… hugging the cusp of a ridge. Chambers and hives cling like swallows’ nests to its sheer face. Though tantalizingly close, the structure remains inaccessible to all but climbers now that many of the original walkways have crumbled away.”

The transition to a pastoral life also sacralized the nominally utilitarian structures, making them into literal and figurative foundations of the community. Whereas past igoudar were mere hiding places for a nomad’s possessions, in time they became communal granaries, holding the produce of the nearby village’s yearly harvest; sanctified by the blessing of the baraka, they became bustling marketplaces, each an agora of delights safe and secure from thefts or other chicanery; and, in the most uncertain of times, they became hiding places for their owners, unassailable redoubts to weather the storms of tribal conflicts or interfamilial squabbles.

The man who managed this important communal structure was thus invested with much religious significance and secular respect. The amin, or guardian, was indeed a very prestigious appointment, commanding respect and implying responsibility. Appointed by a council of dignitaries for a fixed term, the amin resided within the agadir and would open its gates at fixed hours every day, usually in the morning. Scorched by frequent brigandage, the amin would spend the majority of his days scanning the skyline for marauders. Today, though most igoudar have fallen into disuse, many retain an amin for ceremonial significance.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE OUTREACH

In Morocco’s High Atlas, resources are few, and what nature grants is precious to the people. Although an extremely barren desert region, locals have settled agricultural roots near underground water sources and along dry riverbeds, known as wadi. While floods are very common in the Atlas during the rainy season, the intense heat of the nearby Saharan desert parches the region for the majority of the year, and when water from the sky dries up, these man-made oases make life possible in an otherwise inhospitable dead zone. Sophisticated land management techniques and practices handed down through the centuries have enabled the local people to sustain a limited amount of agriculture, thereby creating a highly sensitive and symbiotic ecosystem with local flora and fauna. Rarefied social-ethnic hierarchies have formed around the management of these delicate systems.

It is a functional communal arrangement, to be sure. What it is surely not is a fertile ground for effective cultural preservation. The profound beauty of these high mountain eyries requires a level of maintenance that only skilled local artisans can provide, but they are few in number and are unable to take on this mission single handedly. The remote location of the majestic igoudar makes them hard to access, a situation worsened by enduring climate change and long-term neglect. Impending climate threats have left the old mud towns abandoned and many granaries in severe decay, and despite their contribution to cultural identity, traditional building skills have been lost as an influx of modern, standardized architecture sweeps through the villages from the north.

All of this came to a head late last year. In November 2014, deadly rainstorms in the Anti-Atlas region caused entire districts to go under water after dikes were breached. Three days of flash floods were the worst recorded since 1986, killing 32 people and leaving six people missing. Emergency rescue teams evacuated hundreds, and the Spanish government was called upon to assist in the rescue effort. More than 25 centimeters of rain were recorded in just a few hours. In addition, 100 roads including six national highways were cutoff.

The human impact was staggering, with widespread misery brought about by the deluge in addition to the toll in human life. It was also a cultural catastrophe. Some of the most beautiful of the Atlas’s sacred granaries were badly damaged, and a number of them collapsed as a result of the storm. Those that are still standing remain at high-risk of further immediate deterioration if emergency intervention is not provided.

PROJECT DETAILS

Global Heritage Fund’s emergency outreach initiative centers on the immediate restoration of two collective granaries in Amtoudi, agadir Aguellouy and agadir Id Issa. Both of these granaries have sustained significant damage as a result of the 2014 floods, and are thus prime candidates for preservation by GHF.

The town of Amtoudi is situated 875 meters above sea level, and the granaries are built on extensions, situated 1,000 meters above sea level. The population of the town is 1,768 inhabitants. Both of the granaries represent significant cultural heritage centers and are key attractions for tourism, which is a significant contributor to the region’s GDP.

  1. Aguellouy granary covers an area of 605 square meters, located almost two kilometers from the center of town.
  2. Id Issa granary covers an area of 7,370 square meters (3/4 of a hectare), and is located just outside the center of Amtoudi.

GHF’s strategy will be to stabilize and partially reconstruct the imperiled support structures of the granaries that collapsed due to the heavy rains. Before beginning, we will first conduct a professional survey of the damage, along with an assessment of the necessary engineering and reconstructive work. Next, we will conduct long-term site management and hydrology studies are needed to ensure the granaries are able to withstand future threats from the elements.

The lack of skilled maintenance workers in the region is likely to be a problem, but we plan to address this by providing training to local teams and assigning tasks to perform the repairs. By employing local communities in the stabilization, reconstruction, and planning processes, we also hope to enrich local people with actionable skills that will help them attain further employment well into the future. We are partnering with several organizations, including the Prince Claus Fund, to make this project a reality. To lead our efforts on the ground, GHF has appointed Dr. Salima Naji, a Moroccan architect and social anthropologist specializing in built heritage.

CULTURAL OWNERSHIP: TOOLS FOR THE FUTURE

For more than a decade, Dr. Naji has been involved in the preservation of sacred and collective oases in several towns across the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Her projects extend to four sites of impressive undertaking, from communal granaries to fortified towns. Dr Naji’s work on the preservation of earth buildings in southern Morocco has awarded her with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013, among many additional honors and accolades.

Coming from an anthropological background, she became intensely curious about the social functions of the granaries, as well as their historical and spiritual links to the people. Naturally, this thinking led her to recruit the local communities in her preservation work, as they were able to make social sense of the sites and the role of granaries in everyday life. While ambitious, this decision also awoke long-held tensions between communities, heightened by the fact that she was entering those aforementioned conservative, social-ethnic hierarchies both as a woman and as an outsider.

Working alongside skilled masons and unskilled workmen, whom she trains in traditional building techniques, Naji has introduced a process of participation between historic environments and new community groups. The use of palm and other organic materials aids in achieving authentic preservation, and the training extended to local laborers allows them to apply acquired know-how to preserve other sites. This methodology introduces a contemporary mode of construction that is sustainable, preserves local knowledge, and elevates the role of the traditional artisan.

A thorough understanding of the architecture and its place within the community context have revived both a historic and contemporary dialogue, one that encourages the accurate interpretation of the agadir’s traditional significance alongside its readapted modern use. This implementation strategy has proved pivotal to the successful preservation of Naji’s projects in Morocco, from mosques, kasbahs, the Ksar of Assa, and the granaries.

Naji’s determination to integrate the local communities in the restoration of Morocco’s cultural treasures might seem like an intuitive decision but, while growing in awareness, is still a very rare experience for many communities. Not only does it open the door to renewed creativity, fertile connections, and economic opportunities, it also establishes a sense of collective ownership of the built and intangible heritage of a country. The understanding that a site is worth saving for its cultural value is deepened when you consciously involve the local communities in the preservation of a site, thereby reinstating traditional skills and reviving its correlating traditions. These are the stepping-stones to sustainable development, and the very vision shared with Global Heritage Fund.

FUTURE PLANNING

Together with Dr. Naji, Global Heritage Fund will investigate the communal granaries of the oases of southern Morocco. GHF’s long-term goal there include:

  • Validation of traditional collective architecture and spaces for their aesthetic, cultural and spiritual meanings as well as their role in collective memory, and potential value in the development of sustainable cultural heritage tourism (local and foreign).
  • Address the issue of maintenance and ownership of monuments to local communities, especially public spaces, as this approach no longer exists in new towns.
  • Enhance the local quality of life through the collective conservation of culturally meaningful places.
  • Promote earthen building as a sustainable and affordable technique for contemporary living.
  • Promote traditional building skills at risk of disappearing.