Water, architecture and power in an Islamic capital: the royal country state of the Agdal of Marrakech (12th-20th Centuries)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/arq.arqt.2013.014Keywords:
Agdal, Menara, Islamic country estates, khattara, Islamic gardens, palatine architecture, Almohad architecture, Saadian architecture, Alaouite architectureAbstract
The Agdal is a royal country estate located to the South of Marrakech and annexed to the kasba, founded in the Almohad period. The current enclosure is an area of 340 ha and consists mainly of orchards farmed uninterruptedly for centuries. Over 40 preserved buildings and numerous archaeological remains have been catalogued in its interior. Among these remains, the enclosure of the Dar al-Hana has been identified with the residential area of the Almohad and Saadian periods. In the southern area of this complex, the remains of a large central court Saadian palace, built on a previous Almohad one, have been identified. The enlargement of the Agdal northwards, which converted an isolated country estate (an almunia) into an appendix of the kasba, has been also recorded. The archeological prospection of the Tasltante plain, close to the Agdal, has allowed defining a model of country state and a settlement pattern, which is also followed by this royal property. The archaeological information and the analysis of the written sources have made possible to reconstruct the Agdal and the peri-urban landscape previous to the Alaouite restoration of the imperial capital status to Marrakech in the eighteenth century.
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