Timimoun, like a lot of cities in the so-called Old World, has two parts: one modern and one not.
The not-modern part (I wouldn't want to call it old, since I don't really know how old it is), is called the ksar, which means "fortified village" in Arabic, is the equivalent to the medina in Moroccan cities. I went for a stroll through the narrow sandy pathways as the day was falling, and took a few pictures. The ksar isn't very big, probably not more than 1-2 square kilometers, if that, but habitat is incredibly dense.
This is a public square in the middle of the ksar.
At the base of the castle, young boys play football on one of the few flat, paved surfaces of the area.
Some streets are covered entirely (and the passages unlit). If you venture down this way, you'll find doors with numbers leading to private homes, but the passage is public space. Because the flat floors are supported by palm tree trunks (there is no other building material besides mud/straw bricks), the width of the streets is constrained at less than 2 meters. This is because the trunks do not have enough structural strength for longer spans. The guy is another expert on the mission.
Sometimes, wider passages are built with archways, but those are rare. Zoom in on the picture and check out the bat flying by the expert's head.
On some walls, the cover is these hand-shaped mud balls.
A wall and door in the ksar.
A tower for the castle
A staircase leading to a private home.
Another public space. Note the way that the infrastructure has worked around a large rock outcrop.
The not-modern part (I wouldn't want to call it old, since I don't really know how old it is), is called the ksar, which means "fortified village" in Arabic, is the equivalent to the medina in Moroccan cities. I went for a stroll through the narrow sandy pathways as the day was falling, and took a few pictures. The ksar isn't very big, probably not more than 1-2 square kilometers, if that, but habitat is incredibly dense.
This is a public square in the middle of the ksar.
At the base of the castle, young boys play football on one of the few flat, paved surfaces of the area.
Some streets are covered entirely (and the passages unlit). If you venture down this way, you'll find doors with numbers leading to private homes, but the passage is public space. Because the flat floors are supported by palm tree trunks (there is no other building material besides mud/straw bricks), the width of the streets is constrained at less than 2 meters. This is because the trunks do not have enough structural strength for longer spans. The guy is another expert on the mission.
Sometimes, wider passages are built with archways, but those are rare. Zoom in on the picture and check out the bat flying by the expert's head.
On some walls, the cover is these hand-shaped mud balls.
A wall and door in the ksar.
A tower for the castle
A staircase leading to a private home.
Another public space. Note the way that the infrastructure has worked around a large rock outcrop.
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