Water in the ksours: what genius? case of Timimoun and Tiout (Algeria)

Abstract

What a genius, building a home for more than 10 centuries in the Sahara desert with all the necessary amenities to withstand a hyper-arid climate like that of Timimoun and Tiout. During our work missions during the period: 2000-2019 in the south-west of the Sahara, we were interested in the feeding of Timimoun ksours by the foggaras. This study shows that feeding ksar water remains an unresolved problem for the ksouriens of the Sahara. Two success stories in this area of water have been cited in this paper. These are the ksours of Timimoun which are fed by the foggaras. The ksar of Tiout was supplied with water by an ancestral dam. These are the two cases of the Sahara that have benefited from water with zero energy. These two examples demonstrate the ingenuity of the ksours population. If after ten centuries, the oasis have managed to master the architecture of the ksours, against the supply of ksar in water has shortcomings.