Located in the middle of the north Medina Souk this hard to find little complex of alleyways has been dedicated to dyeing of wool for carpets for many centuries. Despite the incursion of the usual tourist shops it is easy to know you have arrived in the right spot as suddenly there are hanks of wool on washing lines crossing the street. The area is also rather charmingly announced by one of the small municipal notices written in the first person saying “I am the dyers souk…”. The notice then goes on the say strange things such as how they use poppy to create red dye (now I might be wrong but I have never heard of this being possible). Anyhow is it quite clear that chemical dyeing is strongly in action when you look at the hanks of wool hanging up to dry. The drying also seems to take place on the roofs and whilst I was asked for a fee to go up a ladder and take a picture it wasn’t necessary as there were lots of glimpses of drying wool to be seen everywhere, along with bales of very thick spun plain yarn ready for the pot. It made me wonder where this yarn was being spun. I also wondered where the rest of the dyeing takes place as these few small workshops couldn’t have supplied all the carpet weavers of Marrakesh.
