Aït Ben Haddou

Aït Ben Haddou is the most internationally recognised earthen heritage site in Morocco. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, the ksar sits on the southern slopes of the High Atlas in Ouarzazate Province, on a former caravan route linking the Sahara to Marrakech via the Tizi-n'Telouet pass.

The settlement is a textbook example of pre-Saharan earthen vernacular: a tightly packed group of houses inside high defensive walls reinforced by corner towers, with a single baffle gate, a mosque, a public square, threshing areas outside the ramparts, a small fortification at the top of the hill, a caravanserai, and two cemeteries — Muslim and Jewish. The architecture is almost entirely pisé, adobe, and wood.

The oldest surviving structures appear to date to the seventeenth century, although the structural and technical traditions on which they draw are considerably older across the southern Moroccan valleys. The site was a stop on the trans-Saharan trade between the Sudan and Marrakesh, an economic role that ended with the eclipse of the caravan economy in the early twentieth century.

Aït Ben Haddou's preservation is unusual in two respects. First, its inscription as a World Heritage Site has enabled a continuous low-grade maintenance and restoration programme, monitored with difficulty by CERKAS. Second, its appearance in international cinema — Lawrence of Arabia, Jewel of the Nile, Gladiator, Game of Thrones, and others — has produced a tourism economy that funds ongoing local maintenance. The unintended consequence is that some restoration work has compromised authenticity, including the use of reinforced concrete elements masquerading as rammed earth.

The 2023 Al Haouz earthquake caused damage to parts of the structure, prompting renewed conservation activity.