page_title: Gara Medouar
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gara Medouar / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The lower wall of Jebel Mudawwar/Gara Medouar, Morocco; photo by Chloe Capel
context_page_description: Gara Medouar, also known as Jebel Mudawwar, is a horseshoe-shaped geological formation near Sijilmasa, Morocco. In the 11th century it was developed into a fortress with a military garrison that likely protected the nearby trade city of Sijilmasa, where gold coins were minted, and the trade routes from the south. Representatives of the Almoravid dynasty likely had the fortifications built, which included a wall of up to 12 meters high that closed off the only opening to the massif, two walls and defensive structures along the mountains, dams in the canyons to collect water, and a variety of structures on the plateaus.
  The massif was studied by Moroccan sociologist Paul Pascon. Starting with the 1999 film The Mummy, it has also been used as a filming location, and has become a tourist attraction especially for off-roaders.
context_section_description: Jebel Mudawwar may have been the Tasagdalt mentioned by one of the amirs of the Banu Midrar dynasty, Muhammed Ibn al-Fath, who fled from Sijilmasa to "Tasagdalt, a stone fortress some twelve miles from Sijilmasa".
  It was studied by Moroccan sociologist Paul Pascon, who wrote a brief note on it in the Moroccan journal Hespéris in 1956, and published a monograph, La Gara Medouar, that same year. Pascon first visited the site in 1952 when he spent a few hours at the location, long enough to allow him to write up a description in which he listed a defensive wall, four towers, four dams, and various other constructions; he considered the place a stronghold. Local oral tradition held that the place had been used centuries ago by Portuguese slavers, who had used the place as a warehouse. In 2011, an extensive study was done by MAPS (Moroccan–American Project at Sijilmasa) member Chloé Capel.
  Its contemporary role as a tourist destination began with a film: the location was opened up for cinema, off-roading, and tourism because of the 1999 film The Mummy. The site itself was opened up because the crew built a concrete ramp through a breach in the low wall, in the southwest opening of the formation, and one of the film's central locations was built inside. In 1999, remains of plaster indicated where film sets had been constructed, and the area was littered with plastic bottles.
  It has been used in other films as well, including as the setting for the headquarters of SPECTRE in the James Bond film Spectre (2015). These activities have hampered recent archeological investigations: inside the wall the construction and then removal of the Mummy film set disrupted the area; outside the wall no excavations were done because of extensive disruption by the military, the film industry, and tourism, especially that associated with off-roading.
caption: The lower wall, with ramp built for the set of The Mummy
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