Telouet

Telouet was the principal seat of the Glaoua, the dominant tribal confederation of the High Atlas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The kasbah sits at roughly 1,800 metres in the upper Ounila Valley, on the historical caravan route over the Tizi-n'Telouet pass linking Marrakech to the Drâa Valley and the Sahara.

The complex was developed by Madani El Glaoui and his brother Thami El Glaoui — Pasha of Marrakesh under the French Protectorate from 1912 to 1956 — across several major building campaigns between roughly 1860 and 1950. The pisé exterior is a relatively conventional High Atlas kasbah with corner towers and battered curtain walls; the interior reception rooms, by contrast, contain some of the most elaborate gypsum carving, painted cedar ceilings, and zellige tile work in the southern Moroccan vernacular tradition, executed by craftsmen brought in from Marrakech and Fez.

After Thami El Glaoui's death and the family's political fall in 1956, Telouet was abandoned. Roof collapse and water ingress have caused progressive structural damage; substantial sections of the outer kasbah are now in advanced ruin while a smaller core of decorated reception rooms is preserved by intermittent maintenance. The site is open to visitors and has been the subject of a series of partial conservation studies but has not received the integrated programme that the much smaller Aït Ben Haddou has enjoyed.