Archaeological Research in the Mosque of Ahl Wṭāṭ Ḳaṣaba (Wṭāṭ Lḥāj, Boulemane)

Abstract

This article relates the preliminary results of an archaeological mission carried out in and around the mosque of the qaṣba of Ahl Wṭāṭ. However, the facts observed show an old building whose archaeological evidence dates its foundation back to a period ranging from the XVIth to the XVIIIth centuries.
The oldest but also the most authentic part is the tower-minaret built on a rubble base and erected exclusively in raw brick. Its typical truncated pyramidal shape makes it similar to the minarets of Sahelo-Sudanese type mosques found in a larger cultural area encompassing south-eastern Morocco and south-western Algeria as well as the countries south of the Sahara represented by Niger, Mali and northern Côte d’Ivoire.