Matmata - Tunisia

 I've said before that getting cards from places on the UNESCO tentative list is almost as good as getting cards from classified sites. I already have cards from all the Tunisian sites and now I've cards from a few villages, on the tentative list due to their troglodyte houses. 

These are the underground houses of Matmata.

 

 Matmata sits in a hilly landscape of soft sandstone 40 km inland from Gabès, in southern Tunisia.

The Berbers built these over a thousand years ago as an ingenious response to an extreme environment. These underground homes offered protection from the intense summer heat, the cold winters, and even served as shelter in times of possible invasion.

 These houses were built by digging deep circular pits — typically 6–8 metres deep and 10 metres across — and then carving living rooms, kitchens and storerooms horizontally into the pit walls. The result is a cool, naturally air-conditioned dwelling invisible from the surface.

 

Several of these houses are still inhabited. A handful are open to visitors for a small fee, and three have been converted into basic hotels — the most famous being Hotel Sidi Driss, which George Lucas used as the Lars family homestead in the original Star Wars (1977) and revisited for Attack of the Clones (2002).