Tamegroute is a small town of about 4,000 people situated in Morocco’s Draa Valley, at the edge of the Sahara Desert. The town was once located on the Trans-Saharan caravan trade route. Tamegroute is not on the main tourist circuit and is probably best known for its distinctive green-glazed pottery, a 500 year-old art that remains a key part of the local economy.
Centuries ago Tamegroute was an important center of Islamic learning and scholarship in southern Morocco. Pilgrims came here to study at its library, which still holds roughly 4,000 medieval manuscripts including Qur’ans, astronomical treatises, and a 13th-century copy of the Hajj prayer book. Our tour group had hoped to visit the library, but unfortunately it was closed when we visited. Instead we explored the old medina and ended up at the town’s pottery cooperative.
Today the cooperative is run by about a dozen family workshops, many of them descended from the original 16th-century potters. The workshops are organized around a single communal kiln area and share a clay-processing area. The clay is local, the glaze traditional, and the firing done in primitive wood-fired underground kilns — almost exactly as it was done 500 years ago.
We were given a tour of the pottery complex and the process by which the pottery is made was demonstrated to us. This can be summarized as follows:
- Preparation of the clay – depending on what it is used for, quality clay for is key to quality pottery. The clay used in Tamegroute may be dug from up to 10 meters in depth, and is mixed with sand to reach the right consistency. It can take several days of “curing” to get the clay to the proper consistency.
- Throwing: Clay is shaped on underground foot-powered wheels, the artisan often being seated underground as well. These skilled craftsmen can produce hundreds of pieces daily. You’ll watch them make bowls, plates, tagines, platters, candle holders and more.
- Sun-drying the wet thrown vessels.
- Firing on lower heat in wood-fired underground or dome-shaped kilns (often using palm fronds as a fuel source) for 12–24 hours.
- Glazing: Hand-applied with brushes.
- Final Firing: Higher temperature (up to ~1100°C).
- Items are placed for sale. Slight imperfections are common and actually favored as it is believe they add character to the piece.
The following photos were taken in the coop’s gift shop. Items are fairly priced, but friendly bartering is expected.
The towers shown below were also for sale in the gift shop, and the photo was used as last weekend’s One Clue Mystery photo.. They represent towers of the Kasbahs you find in the nearby Draa Valley. As usual, George G recognized exactly where we were.
I bought several pieces as gifts. It’s the kind of shop I enjoy patronizing because the money actually goes to the people doing the work rather than a corporate business.
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