![]() Its founder, Imam Taleb Sid'Ahmed Ben Bajed, did not belong to the first Kunta generations who came to Tagant because the tomb of his father Bajed, that of his grandfather, Sidelemin and even that of his great-grandfather, Sidi Haiballah, are all in Tagant. Ksar el Barka was created by the Kunta from Wadan in 1690. Its foundation would, in this case, be posterior, on the one hand to the invasion of Tagant by the Mâquil Arabs in the 16th century, on the other hand to the disappearance of the empires of Niger at the end of the same century (1591: conquest of Songhaï by the sultan of Morocco). Its architecture is particular and characteristic of the region with its thick stone walls plastered with clay (banco) with triangular or partitioned niches. It is an archaeological site where there are many vestiges of a fortified village weakened by the effects of time and the looting of men. Further work has since stopped, leaving nature to once again snatch back the Vallone dei Mulini from human interference.Ksar El Barka is an historic town located in the commune of Tamourt N' Naaj (formerly commune of Nbeïka), 60 km NNE of the capital, Moudjeria. Locals and tourists alike were horrified when, in 2019, the swathes of vegetation that had made the location so compelling in the first place were cleared. 14 A private company, seeking to take advantage of the city's resultant increase in tourism, began to renovate the abandoned mill. Photographs taken of the site in 2006 went viral, online. The resulting tableau gives an ethereal glimpse of a post-human world entirely reclaimed by nature. Species of fern, including Phyllitis Scolopendrium, 13 flourish in the deep crevice. As the abandoned buildings crumbled, the ruins and their surroundings became completely overgrown. The last mill closed at the beginning of the 20th century, but the high humidity encouraged a microclimate perfect for plant growth. When the Piazzo Tasso was built in 1866, the crevice was closed off from the sea and the humidity inside the gorge rose sharply. Right in the middle of the bustling coastal town of Sorrento is a deep, narrow gorge known as the Vallone dei Mulini, the #Valley of the Mills 12, named for the flour and saw mills that once ran inside the rocky cleft. Soon, the stepped dwellings will be entirely subsumed by nature – as if they had never been there at all. ![]() Now, its walls and streets are viridescent with overgrowth where once there were bricks and mortar, walls are adorned with climbing vines. It's no wonder, then, that its isolation was one of the prime factors leading to the abandonment of the village in the 1990s. Each is an arduous, hours-long journey from the mainland. It is tethered to its neighbour, the equally small island of Gouqi, by a bridge, but the only way to get to either is by private boat, or by bus and then ferry. 1 The island of Shengshan is on the furthermost curling edge of an archipelago of islands in the East China Sea, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) from the mainland coastal city of Shanghai. In fact, it has taken nature fewer than thirty years for plants to reclaim the tiny Chinese fishing village of Houtouwan. These vividly overgrown walls look as if they were abandoned to the elements centuries ago.
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