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Photographic documentation of the Amtoudi area (village, oasis, and agadir). a, Amtoudi village and oasis (view from the agadir); b, south-west view of the agadir from the Amtoudi village; c, close west view of the agadir from the Amtoudi village; d, south-east view of the sidewall of the agadir; e, north-west close view of the agadir; f, internal aspect of the agadir
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Medieval fortified granaries known as “agadirs” are very common in southern Morocco, being catalogued as world cultural heritage by United Nations. These Berber buildings (made of stones and tree trunks) usually located on rocky promontories, constitute historical testimonials related to the origin of Morocco, and, as tourist attractions, have a po...
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... most important failures that can be observed in Amtoudi Agadir occur on the structural walls and on the beams of the ceiling structures. In both cases, the problems are due to poor construction and maintenance, as explained in Table 6 and depicted in Fig. ...
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... the calculation, two conditions were changed ( Fig. 10): (1) the load over the ceiling structure was progressively increased up to tenfold the normal value (left part of Fig. 10); (2) the performance of the material of the beam was reduced (right side of Fig. 10) due to rot, insect attack, or material fatigue (=reducing the flexural elastic ...
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... the calculation, two conditions were changed ( Fig. 10): (1) the load over the ceiling structure was progressively increased up to tenfold the normal value (left part of Fig. 10); (2) the performance of the material of the beam was reduced (right side of Fig. 10) due to rot, insect attack, or material fatigue (=reducing the flexural elastic ...
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... the calculation, two conditions were changed ( Fig. 10): (1) the load over the ceiling structure was progressively increased up to tenfold the normal value (left part of Fig. 10); (2) the performance of the material of the beam was reduced (right side of Fig. 10) due to rot, insect attack, or material fatigue (=reducing the flexural elastic ...
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... Gravity walls Usually, appearing on the exterior sides of the agadir is made up of the accumulation of stacked flat rock fragments. These walls lack interlocking joints in the masonry, have no mortar, and in some cases resemble a small, rough ashlar. The height of a Obtained using the model of critical stability with planar break with the software of equilibrium limit (RockPlane v2.0 from Rocscience Inc., licensed no. 4416A) for block heights of 5 and 10 m these walls can reach 5 m in the external sides of the agadir but the internal ones usually consist of 2 or 3 m (Fig. 7). The thickness of the walls varies from 20-30 cm to near 1 m (Figs. 7, 11). 3.4.1.2 Buttresses In some places of the exterior sides of the agadir, gravity walls or towers are buttressed (Fig. 7a) and are also composed of stacked flat rock fragments in a similar way to gravity ...
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... the second case (when the flexural elastic modulus of the palm is reduced by rot, insect attack, or material fatigue), behaviour under traction, compression, or share is dif- ferent, being shearing the worst situation. In the case of shear, when a reduction of a 20 % in performance occurs, the safety factor falls below 1.5. When the reduction is about 50 %, the safety factor is below 1. The other two conditions (compression and traction) show similar trends: the safety factor falls below 1.5 for a reduction of a 40 % in the perfor- mance of the material, and below 1 for a reduction of a 60 %. Fig. 11 Failures of ceiling structures and walls in the Amtoudi Agadir: a, ceiling structure with bent or sheared beams (see arrow); b, detail of sheared stone beam due to excess of load; c, detail of argan wooden beam sheared by flexure due to excess of load; d, ceiling structure with palm beam sheared by flexure; e, buckled walls having curved surfaces (see arrows) due to being too thin; f, tension crack due to lack of interlocking joints in the masonry or lack of mortar locking the ...
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... the northern border of the Sahara Desert, the legacy of the millenary Berber culture has survived until today. The Berber tribes constructed ''agadirs'' to protect crops and livestock of the community, as well as themselves, from sudden attacks (Fig. 1). Therefore, agadirs, being a type of fortified citadel and granary dating from the tenth century in some cases, were positioned on promontories close to inhabited areas with permanent water and food supplies, such as an oasis (Naji 2003). Agadirs were built with different architectural techniques and located directly on the bedrock, which supplied geomaterials for building, thus making the agadirs indistinguishable from the landscape when viewed from afar. Agadirs have played a key role throughout the history of the populations concerned, in the birth of their community identity and local laws. These constitute an important cultural heritage from the Berber people resulting in the origin of Morocco beginning from the northern migration of tribes from Mauritania. However, many agadirs are currently abandoned due to the modern lifestyle and the exodus of the rural population, while others persist due to the tourism attracted by historical legacy and desertic landscapes. This is the case of the Amtoudi Agadir, which is located in Wadi des Argan, a linear ...
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... The study area (Fig. 1b) belongs to the western segment of the Anti-Atlas Chain from the West-African Craton (Burkhard et al., 2006). In the Wadi des Argan basin, the Anti-Atlas belt outcrops as buckle folding of the contact between Precambrian basement and Palaeozoic sedimentary cover, with the following synthetic succession from bottom to top: (1) a Precambrian basement composed by a complex of 2070 Ma metasediments intruded by 2050-2032 Ma granitoids attributed to the Eburnean orogeny (Walsh et al., 2002); (2) a coarse siliciclastic conglomerate linked to the pan-African rifting unconformably deposited over folded Precambrian assemblages at around 680 Ma (Inglis et al., 2004); (3) an Early Cambrian metasedimentary formation composed of schists and slates, massive dolostones, and marls; and (4) a Middle Cambrian metasedimentary formation composed of limestones and dolostones, archaeocyate bioherms, and schists and slates (Walsh et al., 2002;Burkhard et al., 2006;Robles-Marín et al., 2015). Late Quaternary alluvial deposits fill the valleys. ...
... Besides the ecological interest, the Amtoudi Oasis also hosts one of the best-conserved medieval fortified granaries or 'agadirs' of southern Morocco (Fig. 1f). This is one of the main tourist attractions of the area for its architectural and historic value (Naji, 2003;Robles-Marín et al., 2015;Raffaelli et al., 2015). The Amtoudi Agadir was constructed around the 12th century by the Berber Iznaguen tribe to store resources. ...
... The frequency of groundwater data monitoring was based on a preliminary evaluation of G T around 0.5 years after the alluvial aquifer geometry was defined by Robles-Marín et al. (2015). Average g K = 33 m day − 1 and g S = 0.11 were deduced after two pumping tests performed in pumping wells W1 (29°14′28″N, 9°11′46″W, 851 m a.s.l.) and W2 (29°14′25″N, 9°10′49″W, 865 m a.s.l.). ...
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An interdisciplinary archaeometric study concerning the
Amtoudi Agadir, declared World Cultural Heritage (northern border
of the Sahara Desert, southern Morocco), was performed consisting
in lithostratigraphic reconstruction of the bedrock, diagnosis of constitutivematerials (stones, mortars, and wooden elements), and
analyses of constructive techniques and architectonic elements
(load-bearing and supported structural elements). The medieval
agadir (fortified granary) was built directly on a rocky piton with
rocks of the substratum with traditional materials and ancestral
techniques. The stones have been identified and classified into four
petrofacies. Degradation such as biological attacks, chromatic alteration, erosion, exfoliation, and fissuration on the stones have been
characterized. Recommendations for conservation and maintenance
of the rocks have been proposed in compatibility with the environment. Load-bearing (masonry walls) and supported structural elements (ceiling structures) have also been studied in order to define
their stability. Worst cases of 1- and 2-height walls, together with
worst cases of the wooden or stone ceiling structures have been
analyzed. Materials, techniques, and dimensions have been characterizedfor possible failures to shearing, bending, and flexural buckling as guide for maintenance of the agadir. The main problems of the walls derive from excessively thin construction with a lack of interlockingof the rocks and a diminished proportion or quality of
mortar joining the rocks due to washing. It has been recommended
to avoid thicknesses lower than 0.4 m for 2-height walls and lower
than 0.3 m for 1-height walls. A nominal load has been estimated
in the worst case (with wooden elements) for the ceiling structures
of about 7.0 KN/m2. The calculations have indicated that a 25%
increase over the nominal load would imply a risk of failure, the use
of stone elements being preferable over wooden ones. With these
propositions for the Amtoudi Agadir, new management and prospects
for cultural tourism are feasible.