Ksar Ouled Soltane
Ksar Ouled Soltane is a fortified granary in the hills south of Tataouine, and the best kept of them all. Two courtyards are ringed with barrel vaulted cells stacked four storeys high, reached by stairs that rise straight out of the wall, and the mud render on them has been renewed.
- Time to allow
- A short visit
Visiting Ksar Ouled Soltane
A ksar is a store rather than a dwelling. Each cell held the grain and the oil of one family, the walls are thick and the openings small so the heat stays out, and the whole of it could be shut against a raid. What makes this one worth the drive is the height: the cells are stacked four deep around the courtyard, and the stairs between them are built into the face of the wall with nothing on the open side.
There are two courtyards here, an older one and a newer, joined by a passage. Both are still rendered in mud, which is how they were meant to look, and the shape of the thing is easiest to read standing in the middle of the smaller one and looking up.
What to see
- The courtyard of stacked granary cells
- The stairs built into the face of the wall
- The two courtyards and the passage between them
Along the way in the Deep South and the Ksour
Troglodyte dwellings, fortified granaries, and the dunes beyond the end of the tarmac.
Start with Ksar Ouled Soltane.
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