The Walls of Taroudant

Mohammed Benbacki tells us about the town walls.

The Walls of Taroudant which are the perimeter of the feature of the city which was the capital of Morocco in the era of the Sultan Mohammed Sheikh Al-Saadi (The Saadian dynasty) in the sixteenth century.The walls were built for military purposes in order to defend the city against the attacks of the other tribes and the Portuguese.  They are interspersed with five gates :The Zorgane Gate, Elkhamiss Gate (The Thursday Gate), Oulad Bounouna Gate, Kasbah Gate, and Targhount Gate.  As I said before, the walls were used as a military base to control the region of the Souss Massa Draa as well as to ensure the stability of the commercial caravans between the north and the south of Morocco.Also, the caravans coming from the Sahara and Mauritania.

     These walls were built with the formation of solid walls using a large amount of lime mix rammed earth to give it strength and rigidity to resist against natural elements such as rain and sun.  Today, they arebeing renovated by the Ministry of Culture.

     These walls consist of one hundred and thirty forts and towers and a length of eight kilometers and have a thickness of up to six meters  surrounding the whole city.