THE OLD CITY OF GHAT

Although less impressive than that of Ghadamès, the old town of Ghat with toub walls (dry brick) also really deserves a visit. For the past few years and until the th century, its inhabitants have lived in the agricultural activity of the oasis and the inter-Saharan trade, which Ghat was an essential relay. In the 1980 s, the inhabitants were relocated to the new city. Partly inhabited, especially by the Nigerian Tuareg who come to work here in the season, the old town can be the occasion for pleasant walks and from the top of the fort, from a beautiful perspective on the city. You can spend a good time, to wander through the streets. If some of the pierres rocks appear to have been dug, it is because women crushed the dates of dates to feed the animals.

This is what Henry Duveyrier, a great French traveller, said when he stayed there in 1861:

" According to the local tradition, the foundation of four or five centuries Date at the most… (But) Pliny teaches us… that among the peoples, cities and places whose conquest won the triumph of triumph in Cornelius Balbus, figure the name of Rapsa, called Town. The Town of the Romans was a city, with a fortified enclosure, in a strategic position… Ghat is far from having as a city the importance it has as a market, because it has only 600 houses and 4 000 inhabitants.

The city has a circular shape. At the centre is a small square named Eseli, from which six streets divide the city into six massive houses and will lead to six open doors in the irregular wall that serves as a forum…

The dominant construction of the city is Mesid or school; the only mosque has a fairly high minaret. The houses are two floors like those of Ghadamès, but in smaller dimensions. View of the outside, Ghat appears and is indeed built on a small nipple that dominates the circonvoisin country from southeast to northwest. It is itself dominated, within the distance of the wall wall, by the last foothills of Koukkoumen, a small line of hills, between the Tassili and the Akakous, which separates the valley of Ouararet from that of the...... The population of Ghat is a mixture of all the populations who, since its foundation, have given them an appointment in a commercial interest: white, black, Métis, free men, slaves, Arabs, Berbers…» Duveyrier H., 1864, Les Tuareg du Nord. Paris, Challamel Elder.

If the Population population was colourful, it was no less extremely hierarchical. At the top of the pyramid was the Tuareg chiefs of the tribe of the Tuareg Kel Azjer, who magnaient the arms contrary to the vassales tribes. In Ghat, however, this military aristocracy did not take a toll on the caravans who came to trade in the large market where, among other things, black slaves were sold. The abolition of slavery took a severe blow to the commercial activity of the city.

A small town but a major crossroads, Ghat is fiercely contested by the Ottoman, French and Italian powers in the th and th centuries because it lies on one of the major commercial routes between the Sahel (then called Sudan) and, in the north, Ghadamès and Tunis or Tripoli.

The fort created by the Turks then houses Italy and then French. Climb up to the top of its walls, from which we are not tired of seeing the strange image of the walls of often sans walls of the old town which contrast so much with the new uniform habitat of the new town extending to the east with the mountains of Village.

The Tuareg jewels. Five or six Boutiques jewelry shops have been elected in the old town, including the one of the Quelawaw, which is a father's jewellers in son. The jewels are silver or nickel, old or new, and each cross corresponds to one of the top places in the Tuareg world that their goldsmiths will be happy to detail you (one finds of course that of Ghat). The manufacture of jewellery is a matter of men, while the craft of leather is that of women.