The mysterious Ksar of Draa in Timimoun

ArcheoTravelers ^ | November 6, 2020 | editors / unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

...The Draa ksar rises majestically in the middle of an ocean of dunes. It has a characteristic circular shape, stands out in the middle of the desert and its history has been lost over the centuries...

Not even the locals are able to provide information on this very particular structure, the only news related to it is that for a certain period of time it was occupied by the Jews of the Timimoun region...

A circular wall, about two meters high, surrounds the ksar towards the outside. This is also a circular one, consisting of a double wall, the external one in stones bound with clay and the internal one in clay only. It has a single access point to the north, and a series of rooms on three levels develop between the two walls. The absence of exposed stairs allows us to hypothesize that there were internal ones that allowed access to the various floors. A further peculiarity lies in the fact that there are no communicating rooms and not even any windows facing outwards...

It is a typology of building typical of the Persian culture, however many examples can also be seen in North Africa and throughout the Middle and Near East. Many of these structures were built by master engineers belonging to Sufi orders...

Among the most recent is that of an American team (of scholars?) Who arrived in Timimoun in the 1980s. This recruited the best guides in the region, gathered supplies and entered the Tinerkourk Erg. After crossing the sea of ​​dunes, the expedition reached the mysterious building. The Americans asked the guides to leave them alone and pick them up after a week. Nobody knows what they looked for in the ksar or even what they eventually found inside.

[PIF]

The papers I found about the site were in French, so, out of luck there.

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They make translator plug-ins for most browsers. I use TWP
for firefox, very fast.