Berber architecture reflects the rugged lifestyles of populations who inhabit the unforgiving terrain of the slopes of the Atlas and the desert fringe. As if in a mirage, the land is dotted about with castles with turrets and battlement adorned with apotropaic motifs of a rustic but prepossessing elegance. Derived in the main from the traditional cloth woven by this nomadic peoples, their formal language is at once restrained and naive. the decoration, for the most part confined to the upper reaches,is composed of simple geomatric motifs: lozenges, crosses, mihrabs, trees of life, scorpions, and meanders are deployed through an effective linear stylization that animates with ingenous spontaneity the mud walls of these large and severe strongholds.