Wooden plow

Mgoun Valley, High Atlas Mountains, Province of Ouarzazate

A Berber tribesman in the Mgoun district of the High Atlas mountains. He is carrying his wooden plow to the fields to begin his day of work, plowing for barley. In this area, where winters are long and cold, barley is planted in spring and will mature in mid-summer.

The wooden plow is drawn by a team of horses or mixed horses, mules, and donkeys. It is made of a strong, pliable wood: ash.

In Europe, a gradual transition from wooden plows to iron-tipped plows took place in the Middle Ages, after 1000 A.D. and before 1300 A.D. For a variety of reasons, that transition has not taken place in Morocco until this century, and there are still places like this where it has not yet taken place.

The man is wearing a djellaba, the Moroccan men's overgarment.