Rammed-earth construction in Southern Morocco: A reappraisal of the technology

A reappraisal of the rammed-earth technology of the Mgoun Valley in the High Atlas, with attention to the specific Tamazight construction vocabulary used by local masons. The paper records the technical terminology — tabut for the technique, amtay for a section of wall, the Tamazight equivalent of the Arabic luh (wood plank) — and documents the variations in the technique across the region, contrasting it with rammed-earth traditions elsewhere in the Maghreb and beyond.

The methodological contribution is the integration of technical surveying with linguistic recording: the paper insists that the construction technique cannot be understood without the vocabulary in which the masons describe it, and that any attempt at restoration without the language is partial.