Agadir Imi'm Korn

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The crenellated tower of the Agadir of Imi'm Korn had machinase- like projections on all four sides . To the left of the tower you can still see the cactus bushes, from which many agadirs were surrounded for better defense.

The Agadir Ikounka in the small town of Imi'm Korn (sometimes also spelled Imi Mqorn ) belongs to the Agadirs (storage castles ) of the Berbers in the Moroccan Anti-Atlas Mountains.

location

The small town of Imi'm Korn is located about one kilometer east of the road (R105) between Agadir and Tafraoute, about halfway between Biougra and Aït Baha in the Souss-Massa region in southwestern Morocco. The Agadir is located on the northern outskirts.

history

In the absence of written records, there is no reliable information about the age of the village ( douar ) or the warehouse castle. However, it can be assumed that the place was already settled in pre-Islamic times. The age of the storage castle is likely to be around 200 to 300 years; Dendrochronological dating methods for argan wood have not yet been developed and would probably not lead to a reliable result, since the wood was replaced again and again in earlier times. It is not known whether there was a previous building. The Agadir underwent a comprehensive restoration in 2014/5.

architecture

material

As with most of the Agadirs in the Anti-Atlas region, the entire structure is made of larger and smaller stones, which are lying around in large quantities in the area and which were extremely obstructive in the field work, perfectly crafted and assembled without the use of mortar - just a little clay.

Aisle with stepping stones
Storage chamber on the ground floor

Forecourt and tower

An entrance gate used to lead to a forecourt with a small chamber for the or - depending on the season - the guard ( amin ). There were also two cisterns that were dug out of the stony ground, then walled up with stones and lined on the inside with a waterproof plaster.

In the area of the court is also the upwardly tapering slightly watchtower high with its battlements and projections at machicolated or machicolations remember one of the most original and most beautiful in Morocco. Several loopholes can be seen in the outer walls of the tower .

Core construction

The actual access to the interior of the Speicherburg is via a passage with the stone benches opposite to be found in all Agadiren, which were mainly used for the gathering of the village elders. On both sides of a straight central aisle are the individual storage chambers (there are around 90 in total), which are arranged on three floors one above the other and accessible via stepping stones embedded in the masonry.

Storage chambers

The approximately 1.60 meters wide and about 6.50 to 7.50 meters deep, but only about 1.60 meters high storage chambers have ceilings or floors made of crooked argan woods with a cover made of reeds and clay. The chambers on the ground floor also have a platform about 20 centimeters high to protect against rising damp. In the outer wall at the rear, a small light or ventilation opening is usually left open, which, however, could also be used as a loopholes in times of attacks.

The storage chambers were formerly closed by carved or painted wooden doors secured with complicated locks made of wood (later made of metal); However, these have all disappeared: some of them ended up at city antique dealers or - in exceptional cases - also in museums; After the final abandonment of Agadir around the middle of the 20th century, several doors were burned by the owners of the chambers.

See also

literature

  • Robert Montagne: Un magasin collectif de l'Anti-Atlas, l'agadir des Ikounka. Larose, Paris 1930.
  • Djinn Jacques-Meunié: Les greniers collectifs au Maroc. Larose, Paris 1944
  • Djinn Jacques-Meunié: Greniers-citadelles au Maroc (Publications de l'Institut des Hautes Études Marocaines; 52). Larose, Paris 1951.
  1. Texts etplans .
  2. Photographies .
  • Salima Naji: Greniers collectifs de l'Atlas. Patrimoines du Sud marocain . Edisud, Paris 2006, ISBN 978-2-7449-0645-9 .
  • Herbert Popp , Mohamed Ait Hamza, Brahim El Fasskaoui: Les agadirs de l'Anti-Atlas occidental. Atlas illustré d'un patrimoine culturel du Sud marocain. Natural Science Society, Bayreuth 2011 ISBN 978-3-939146-07-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Special print from: Journal de la Société des Africanistes , Vol. 13 (1944), Issue 1, ISSN  0037-9166

Coordinates: 30 ° 10 ′ 6.5 ″  N , 9 ° 14 ′ 13 ″  W.