FOREWORD - The research I have conducted on the Chawi Berbers of the Aurès, as well as on the Amazigh areas of North Africa, has naturally prompted my interest in the Fortified Granaries. These are forms of construction, which are a specific trait of the Imazighen (pl. form of 'Amazigh').
Most of my research papers, either in French or in English, have been posted on Academia.edu or on Inumiden.com. As a matter of fact, one of the first documents I published, appeared in AWAL-Cahiers d'Études Berbères founded by Mouloud Mammeri and Tassaout Yacine. The original article dealt with the Granaries of the Aures mountains in Algeria ("La guelâa aurassienne").
Recently, Academia prompted me to write a short 'Letter' and I chose the topic of the preservation of the Fortified Granaries, which are unfortunately in danger of disappearing.
The Amazigh Fortified Granaries
One common feature that characterizes the Amazigh (Berber) civilization of North Africa is their overall sense of community life. Food and water are of course an important social consciousness, particularly in the mountains or in the desert. In the Djurdjura Mountains of Algeria, the Kabyles keep huge clay jars [‘ikufan’] for this purpose, a bit like the Minoans did in Crete [‘pithoi’, πίθοι]. In the Sahara Gourara region, the Zenetes invented an intricate irrigation system to distribute the phreatic water supply to turn the desert green. Mouloud Mammeri, the Algerian writer and sociologist, fought to preserve this legacy, which was finally declared a UNESCO World Heritage.
Today’s paper is dedicated to the fortified granaries, an architectural Amazigh conception, that is both a social form of community food as well as a defensive hub in case of need.
What makes these granaries original is that they can only be found according to a transversal line that goes from Agadir in the West to Fezzan in the East, roughly following the Saharian side of the Atlas Chain.
Their features as well as their names differ according to the area they have been built. The Moroccan seaside town of Agadir has been named because, in the Sous region, the granaries are called ‘agadir’ [a wall, in the Cheuh language]. In the Aures Mountains of Algeria, they are called ‘gelâa’ (Arabic) or ‘taq’liath’ (Chawi Berber). In the mountains of southern Tunisia, they are known as ‘ghorfa’ [غرفة, a room]. But when they form a complete construction having several levels, the monument is called a 'gasr'. There are more granaries in the Jebel Nefussa in Tripolitania (Libya) but unfortunately, we know little about these apart that they are very similar to the other existing Berber granaries.
The granaries share an identical concept. They are an assemblage of cells, each belonging to a family, all forming a massive construction. In order to protect their content, there is usually an open space on the indoor side of the building; the outside may look like a plain wall in order to be used as eventual protection. Depending on where they are, and also how many families have their own cell, they can have several floors. The upper levels can be reached either by steep stairs or wooden ladders. In the south of Tunisia, the 'ghorfa' has a rectangular shape crowned with a curved roof. One way of shaping the roof was to fill the empty cell space with sand and then build the elongated roof dome.
In the Aures, the 'taq’liath' is mostly built with stones and the roof is reinforced with palm-tree trunks. Here, the cells are more or less square in shape but sometimes have an interesting form of opening to air and lightening the inside.
The story of all these fortified granaries has much to reveal about the ‘Imazighen’ (pl. form of ‘Amazigh’). Too often, modernity and also politics, have neglected to preserve this amazing Berber legacy. Some have completely disappeared while others have been abandoned. However, some are trying hard to keep the heritage. Recently, an online Algerian FaceBook site called TamazƔa made an appeal to save the fortified granary of Kheirane in the Aures nicknamed ‘El Kalaâ’. The comment says that ‘the Amazigh ancestors used to build the granaries at the foot of the mountains and the hills on the southern side of the Aures mountains to protect them from enemy attacks as well as a way to keep a look-out on their orchards’.
Obviously, not enough has been done for the preservation of the fortified granaries. It is not simply another way to preserve an endangered heritage. We still have much to learn about these constructions. For instance, for the two areas best known by the author of the article ('ghorfa' and 'taq’liath', it is still possible to collect useful information locally. In the Aures Mountains, the granaries keep interesting architectural symbols that are in keeping sometimes with the signs found in traditional pottery. The wall openings reveal triangular friezes and sometimes around assemblage figuring the Sun. These societies are essentially agricultural, these designs are linked to an old attachment to the Earth.
There is a need also to work collectively in order to gather more substantial data according to the transversal line of the Saharian side of the Atlas from the Jebel Nefousa in Libya to the Sous region of Morocco.
Christian Sorand
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