A familiar sight in the south of Morocco, this doorway of titanic proportions represents a typical grand entrance into a fortified house, or Kasbah. Kasbahs, which vary in size from single dwellings that would have housed one family to whole fortified neighbourhoods in towns, are a symbol of Morocco's turbulent past. Morocco history has been dominated by a succession of dynasties (both Berber and Arab) and has been characterised by long periods of infighting and instability. Hence the presence of protected dwellings. This entrance, at the Kasbah Tamnougalte in the Draa Valley shows typical architectural features of the ancient mudbrick kasbah. The door is made of tamarind, a tree found in the south of Morocco which yields a solid wood used for construction (both of doors and beams) as well as for cooking, as it burns without smoke. Inside the kasbah the ceilings would have been made of tamarind or date palm beams criss-crossed with smaller branches of bamboo. The houses themselves would have been built from the earth on which they stand, using a solid mix of raw earth, straw, sand and sometimes small stones. Typically these dwellings were designed to withstand intense heat and were therefore built with very few windows. This kasbah is open to the public and what strikes vistiors immediately is the lack of light in the building. Many will have internal courtyards to provide some kind of outdoor space (for animals for instance) and occasional "skylights" to provide some degree of illumination but the objective above all was to protect the interior from the ferocious North African heat. Some kasbahs are still inhabited but many have been left in ruin due to their lack of facilities (access to water, electricity etc). In the case of Tamnougalte, which lies at the heart of a 16th Century Jewish community, many of its Jewish inhabitants fled Morocco in the years that followed the creation of the state of Israel at the end of the 1940s. Other kasbahs, such as the Ksour of Ait Benhaddou are still home to a handful of families but the majority of its inhabitants have elected to live in the more modern conditions offered by newer settlements. Although buildings in many rural societies are still built using the same traditional techniques, modern constructions are favoured by most more wealthy Moroccans. In large accessible villages and in the larger towns, adobe dwellings have been systematically replaced by breeze block and cement constructions. A sign that old traditions are dying out across the country.
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