Ksar or qsar (
Maghrebi Arabic:
قصر ''qṣer'' or ڭصر ''gser'', plural ''qṣur'';
Berber
Berber or Berbers may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa
* Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Places
* Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile
People with the surname
* Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
: ⵉⴴⵔⵎ ''aghrem'' or ''ighrem'', plural: ''igherman''), plural ksars, qsars, ksour or qsour, is the North African term for "fortified village," from
Arabic ''qaṣar'' (), itself possibly loaned from Latin ''castrum''. The term generally refers to a Berber fortified village.
Related terms
The origin of the
Maghrebi Arabic term ''qsar'' is
''qaṣar'' () in
Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also refe ...
, which means "castle" or "palace"; this term is also found elsewhere in the
Muslim world. See, for example, the
Iberian ''
alcázar
An alcázar, from Arabic ''al-Qasr'', is a type of Islamic castle or palace in the Iberian Peninsula (also known as al-Andalus) built during Muslim rule between the 8th and 15th centuries. They functioned as homes and regional capitals for gover ...
''.
The
Berber
Berber or Berbers may refer to:
Ethnic group
* Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa
* Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Places
* Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile
People with the surname
* Ady Berber (1913–196 ...
(Amazigh) original word for "ksar" used in North Africa by the Berber-speaking populations is ''aghrem'' (singular) or ''igherman'' (plural). In the
Maghreb, the term has a more general meaning of "fortified village," or "fort". The Berber word ''igherman'' might be a cognate word, with an identical meaning, with the word ''
Garamantes'', which is the name of the ancient Berber city-states in modern-day Libya.
Architecture
Ksour in the Maghreb typically consist of attached houses, often having collective
ghorfa (
granaries) and other structures like a
mosque, bath, oven, and shops. Ksour / ''igherman'' are widespread among the
oasis
In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.”
The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
populations of
North Africa. Ksars are sometimes situated in mountain locations to make defense easier; they often are entirely within a single, continuous wall. The
building material of the entire structure is normally
adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...
, or cut stone and adobe. The idea of the ksar as a granary is a confused notion of two things, the granary itself, found within a ksar, and the ksar, which is a village, normally with granaries within it. Ksars form one of the main manifestations of
Berber architecture.
Places named Ksar
The word is part of place names across
Morocco,
Algeria, and
Tunisia, — the region called the
Maghreb; and is particularly prevalent on the Saharan side of the various ranges of the
Atlas Mountains
The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around through Moroc ...
and the valley of the
Draa River
:''Dra is also the abbreviation for the constellation Draco.''
The Draa ( ber, Asif en Dra, ⴰⵙⵉⴼ ⴻⵏ ⴷⵔⴰ, ary, واد درعة, wad dərʿa; also spelled Dra or Drâa, in older sources mostly Darha or Dara) is Morocco's longest ...
.
*
Ksar Hadada, Tunisia, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was filmed there.
* Ksar Halloof, Tunisia.
* Ksar Oulad Dabab, Tunisia.
*
Ksar es-Seghir, Moroccan stronghold in the Straits of Gibraltar, between Tangier and Ceuta
*
Ksar el-Kebir, location of the
Battle of Alcácer Quibir, influenced Moroccan, Portuguese and Spanish history
*
Ksar Nalut, Libya
*
Ksar Ouled Soltane, Tunisia
See also
*
List of ksour in Tunisia
The list of ksars (Arabic: ''ksour'') in Tunisia is established by Herbert Popp and Abdelfettah Kassah and published in their book ''Les ksour du Sud tunisien : atlas illustré d'un patrimoine culturel'' in 2010.
It lists 92 ksour, i.e. almost a ...
*
Ghorfa
*
Alcázar
An alcázar, from Arabic ''al-Qasr'', is a type of Islamic castle or palace in the Iberian Peninsula (also known as al-Andalus) built during Muslim rule between the 8th and 15th centuries. They functioned as homes and regional capitals for gover ...
(also ''Alcácer'' or ''Alcasser'')
*
Ribat
*
Maghreb placename etymology
References
External links
www.ksour-tunisiens.com– complete documentation of all ksour of southern Tunisia, Herbert Popp & Abdelfettah Kassah
{{Islamic architecture
Arabic words and phrases
Arabic fortifications
Berber architecture
Fortifications by type
Sahara
Castles
Ribats