We decided to follow Ian and Janice to Amtoudi.

The mountains run roughly ne to sw. We've came round the southern end to get to Bouizakarne.

Dry river beds but sufficient moisture to grow things. We think date palms.

Sedimentary sandstone contorted and eroded by wind and water.

Not quite what we were expecting - there's something built on the hill top.

We aren't the only tourists. The village is accessible for day trips from Agadir and there's a steady flow through a few hotels and restaurants as well as the campsite.

Id-Aissa is (we think) an alternative name for Amtoudi.

About 12th century. Restored some time in the last 30 years or so.

To keep grain and other food safe.

We think beehives or storage for honey.

Looks like more than bees and honey to our uneducated eyes..

This structure is quite unlike a castle or other symbol of power, prestige,  status, rule or oppression. And not religious as a church, cathedral, mosque or temple. Nor monumental as a burial site.

It somehow feels communal, utilitarian, defensive not offensive, to protect not conquer, survival not worship. 

Perhaps simply public infrastructure for the time.

Research has been difficult for us (google wants us to go to a hotel) but we did find  this paper on grain conservation in the Maghreb (North Africa, west of Egypt to the Atlas Mountains) to Central Europe.

We missed this bit of influence on Andalucian culture. The Maghrebis are the Moors that occupied the Iberian Penninsular.

Any water flowing off the roofs is diverted to a single cistern.

Grain (and other crop) storage is primarily required because of the possibility of bad years and famine.

Beyond that is the threat from other tribes and sometimes central government. Subduing the community involved destruction of the granary.

There's a mosque within the walls. The agadir is crime free, inviolable. No lies, no theft. Grain itself is sacred, a tradition possibly older than Islam, and thus so is the agadir.

The granary is predominantly a Berber tradition but is possibly also older and wider.

Part of the Koran.

Written on bone.

A wooden lock.

The head of each family had a key to the family's storage rooms.

There's a hint that only sufficient grain was provided to the family to avoid waste.

We think its quite possible our guardian is a continuation of the original guardian who limited access to the agadir and guarded against deterioration of the grain.

Its taken several days to arrive at some small sense of how the community may have worked.

But that's a quite different sense to how feudal European Christian communities evolved. 

An almost seamless continuation of the cliff.

The bird probably flew!

The guardian must have been summoned as we left the campsite. We made sure the people at the campsite knew we were going up and let the grapevine do the rest.

He arrived shortly after us. A little out of breath.

Not quite the red of the Australian center but ....

Still warm.

The round bread is larger than other places so far in Morocco.

Makes good toast!