CERKAS: Centre de Conservation et de Réhabilitation du Patrimoine Architectural Atlasiques et Subatlasiques

The institutional founding documentation of CERKAS, the Moroccan state agency established in 1989 under the Ministry of Culture and headquartered at Kasbah Taourirt in Ouarzazate. The agency's mandate covers the conservation and rehabilitation of the architectural heritage of the High Atlas and pre-Saharan zones — which in practice means the kasbahs, ksour, and igherman of southern Morocco.

CERKAS is the principal Moroccan state institution working on this corpus. Its reach has expanded gradually since founding, with the Getty Conservation Institute partnership at Taourirt in 2011 representing the largest single international collaboration in the agency's history.

The official institutional documentation is fragmentary and primarily in French, distributed through Ministry of Culture channels rather than through public scholarly publication. CERKAS has not, to date, established a substantial public-facing digital presence.