Qasr el-Hajj

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Qasr el-Hadj - exterior view
Qasr el-Hadj - inner courtyard
Qasr el-Hadj - interior view with staircase

Qasr el-Hadj ( Arabic قصر الحاج, DMG Qaṣr al-Ḥāǧǧ = " Ksar of the Mecca pilgrim ") is a place and an imposing storage castle ( ksar ) of the Berbers in the municipality of al-Jabal al-Gharbi in northwest Libya .

location

Qasr el-Hajj is located at an altitude of about 250  m and about 140 km (driving distance) east of Nalut in the Nafusa Mountains . The distance to the northeast Libyan capital Tripoli is about 200 km.

Ksar

Building history

The multi-storey storage castle (ksar) on the outskirts with its 114 storage chambers ( ghorfas ) was once built and used by the families of the nearby village. Sheikh Abdella Ben Muhammad Ben Hilal Ghanem, who is said to have lived in the 12th century, is sometimes named as the founder of the building. In view of the non-existent written sources, however, much remains unclear and so the age of the building can only be roughly estimated - today it is assumed to be around 200 to 400 years.

function

In the Ksar, during the summer migrations with the herds of cattle (sheep and goats) in higher-lying and therefore greener areas, durable food (grain, oil, dates, almonds, figs, nuts, etc.), but also household and agricultural equipment and weapons were deposited and secured by a guard against attacks by wandering nomads or rival Berber clans. Each family had one, sometimes two chambers. Trade caravans found shelter and shelter in the courtyard area less often; As a rule, they also spread their goods for exchange or purchase.

Building material

The entire almost circular building was built exclusively from the materials found on site (rubble stones, loam soil, palm trunks, etc.) and plastered with loam soil. The plaster, which had to be renewed every few years, protected the walls of the Ksar from being washed out by sandstorms and the rare rainfall.

architecture

Only one entrance allows access to the inner courtyard, which is surrounded by storage chambers (ghorfas) arranged on three levels ; a fourth row of chambers is half underground. The storage chambers are arched, have only tiny window openings to the outside and are thus mainly exposed to light through the open doors. Inside they are about 1.90 m high, about 5.50 m deep and about 2.20 m wide. The staircase to a circumferential corridor in front of the chambers on the upper level is interesting, because there were no stone or board platforms in front of the chamber entrances and so the chambers on the lower levels were reached by means of movable notched palm trunks. The previously existing wooden doors were secured with complicated wooden locks (later metal locks) - locks and wooden doors have all disappeared; sometimes they are for sale in the antique shops of the big cities.

See also

More Ksour in northwest Libya:

literature

  • Herbert Popp, Abdelfettah Kassah: Les ksour du Sud tunisien. Natural Science Society, Bayreuth 2010, ISBN 978-3-939146-04-9 (French)
  • Joachim Willeitner: Libya. Tripolitania, Syrtebogen, Fezzan and the Cyrenaica. DuMont-Verlag, Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-7701-4876-2 , p. 137f.

Web links

Commons : Gasr el-Hadj  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 32 ° 3 '  N , 12 ° 10'  E