Posted on 12/25/2024 6:20:25 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at archeotravelers.com ...
One could build quite a conspiracy theory from that.
“One could build quite a conspiracy theory from that.”
_________________________________
I think it would have made (would make) for a great movie.
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Ancient home of Thulsa Doom.
The excerpt does not say where this Timimoun is, but according to Wikipedia, it’s in south central Algeria.
how do they live in the desert, it’s all sand???
The “Americans”
—
Were they ever seen or heard from again?
Sounds like the “guides” murdered them and concocted the story to explain their disappearance...
Reminds me of “Beau Geste”.
That was Sam Kinison’s point. :^)
It's not a great source, I used it because of the nice photos, and because they'd inhibited the right-click copy and it kinda ticked me off. :^) The papers I found about the site were in French, so, out of luck there.
:^) Orrrr, they examined the site for a week, found absolutely nothing, went back, and spent some time in a much more fun place (not in Algeria).
lol
Consider the amount of water required to make the clay and clay and stone walls. Where did it come from? Consider the workforce to do it. How were they fed and watered?
An amazing structure. You would think invesigators could find some carbon to be dated.
Probably wetter, probably water was drawn from wells. The alternative is, the building materials were brought in from some distance -- but then, why build there at all?
There's a Roman fort in the middle of the middle of nowhere (Jordan) that looks like a great candidate for reconstruction assisted by AI, because the building materials appear to be in situ. Reason for this is the isolation -- cut stone from ancient ruins has often been scavenged to build something new(er), but the place remains too remote for that to have happened.
“Probably wetter, probably water was drawn from wells.”
Agreed. Maybe built during a wetter, warmer phase in our history.
yup...
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