The Marrakech Tanneries: Leather the Medieval Way

Overview

The tanneries are the medina at its most medieval — a quarter of open-air stone vats near the Bab Debbagh gate where leather has been cured and dyed by hand for close to a thousand years, using techniques and even ingredients that would be familiar to a 12th-century tanner. It's pungent, fascinating and utterly real, but it's also tout territory, so a little know-how (or a guide) makes all the difference.

Marrakech grew wealthy partly on leather, and the tanners' guild has always worked here, downwind and downstream at the edge of the medina by the Oued Issil. Hides — sheep, goat, cow, camel — are first soaked in vats of lime and, traditionally, pigeon droppings, whose ammonia softens and cleans the skins, before being worked, then plunged into pits of natural dye: saffron for yellow, poppy for red, indigo for blue, mint and henna for green and orange.

Men stand thigh-deep in the vats, turning and treading the hides in scenes that have barely changed in centuries — a genuinely extraordinary sight, if a challenging one for the nose. The finished leather goes to the souks to become the babouche, bags, poufs and jackets you'll see everywhere. Overlooking the vats, terraces (usually attached to leather shops) offer the classic view down over the colourful pits.

This is a working place, not an attraction with a ticket booth, which is both its appeal and its complication. 'Guides' will attach themselves to you at the gate, thrust a sprig of mint under your nose 'for the smell' (a Berber gas mask, they'll joke) and steer you to a shop expecting a hefty tip. It's manageable if you're firm and agree any payment up front — or far more relaxed with a proper guide who takes you in, explains the craft and handles the theatrics.