This is one of my
favorite postcards, which shows many leather dyeing vats in one of the
tanneries in Fes, the Old Medina – a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981. Leather is the country’s largest export to partners like Spain and France,
thus Morocco’s ancient tanneries, began centuries ago, are still of great
economical and cultural significance. Fez, the third largest city of the
country, is the heart of it. The Old Medina is specifically home to three
ancient leather tanneries, which have been washing, treating, smoothing, and
coloring animal skins into soft, leather goods for over a thousand years. Many
thanks to Houda for this gorgeous postcard!
References:
“Jamaa el Fna” is a square and market place in Marrakesh's medina quarter (old
city). The origin of its name is unclear and a more
likely explanation is that it refers to a mosque with a distinctive courtyard or
square in front of it.The Jemaa el-Fnaa is one of the most famous squares in
all of Africa and is the centre of city activity and trade. It has been part of
the UNESCO World Heritage site “Medina of Marrakesh”since 1985. Historically
this square was used for public executions and decapitations by the rulers to
maintain their power by frightening the people. The square attracted dwellers
from the surrounding desert and mountains to trade here and stalls were set up
on the square from early in its history. The square attracted tradesmen in
foods, animal forage and domestic items, snake charmers, Berber women in long
robes, camels and donkeys, dancing boys of the Chleuh Atlas tribe, and
shrieking musicians with pipes, tambourines and African drums. Today the square
attracts people from a diversity of social and ethnic backgrounds and tourists
from all around the world. Snake charmers, acrobats, magicians, mystics,
musicians, monkey trainers, herb sellers, story-tellers, dentists, pickpockets,
and entertainers in medieval garb still populate the square. It has been
described as a "world-famous square", "a metaphorical urban
icon, a bridge between the past and the present, the place where Moroccan
tradition encounters modernity. Thank you very much my friend Houda who sent me
this wonderful postcard from Casablanca, Morocco. The stamp is a 3-D one, very
interesting, shows three different kings of the kingdom viewed from different aspects!
