I think this is the location where the dig was taking place in Morocco early on in the film:

Ou Taouch / Ou Taouch, Meknès-Tafilalet, Morocco, Africa

near Er-Rissani at N31 17.965 W4 24.009 I think. Anybody been and any comments on the access to it from the N12?

Yes right location and used a few times in the film afaik


DSCN0197 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

At the Top

DSCN0203 by Trackasylum, on Flickr

Coords are spot on its about 3km of the N12, very easy to get to possible in a hire car when I stopped in 2011

Thanks for that information, might have to watch the film again. It looks very smooth from the road to it from pictures I've seen, does that sound right?

Do you know any of its Foreign Legion history?

Try to find out more but didn't get very far, recall reading it was used by the locals for collecting water on one source and as a defense posistion on another

Certainly a clear view of anybody approaching.

Interesting installation. When you look at it on aerial image it's clearly a natural formation that, with the simple addition of that wall and portal, became a defensive agadir or citadel which I imagine would have preceded the French occupation.
Not to say the French may nor have used it as a garrison or something, but the presence of Sijilmassa on the other side of the Rheris flood plain suggests it (or places like it) may go back centuries. Sijilmassa was the northern end of the '52 Days' trade route to Timbuktu and it's no coincidence that it sits right on the point where the two big rivers - Rheris and Ziz - nearly touch. High Atlas reliably feeding the sunny desert with water would make a great location for agriculture (as aerial shows today) and I'd guess long before Sijilmassa became the famous medieval desert entrepôt.
You get a lot these ancient installations along the riversides hereabouts. Look at this place just north of Taouz on the other side of the flood plain. Just a few miles south are some pre-Islamic tombs, quite rare in Morocco as far as I know, but in the central Sahara often found clustered where a big river disgorges onto a plain. Seems to be a key factor in prehistoric settlement.

There's an example of an old French fort at Atchana about 100km NNW, though not much left of it. See Tim's post on the history.

Ch

Clever use of the local topography, and a fort on either side of the flood plain would easily control access.

Looking at this place:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=30....num=1&t=h&z=18 I see it has a "runway" that is shown at the fort to the north (look on Google Earth at the photo's and one shows a picture calling it a "runway" )

Panoramio - Photo of Desert "runway" Looking at them I'd guess it's about controling the access to the fortification, ie make attackers go a that isn't the easiest.

Great info Chris, thanks!

Yes, it was a French Foreign Legion site. Easy access from the main road to the south, interesting lands to the east and north, but they were heavily flooded when I was there, so I couldn't explore more.

The entrance wall shown in the film is clearly defensive with another set of walls at the northern high backside to protect that way in. Then there's another wall across which was to collect rain water.

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