The "Zahriya Marrakech" initiative, a cultural heritage project in the enchanting city of Marrakech, captivates both tourists and enthusiasts of intangible cultural heritage, offering a sensory journey centered around the fragrance of the bitter orange (Naranj) that is deeply intertwined with the city’s history.
An Italian tourist named Elena described the experience as "vivid," emphasizing that it transcends the visual aspect to incorporate scents, warmth, and movements, creating a complete immersion into the traditional ambiance. This initiative aims to evoke the collective memory of Marrakech’s residents through the sense of smell, with the Naranj fragrance being one of the distinctive aromas associated with the city, its narrow alleys, and traditional houses for centuries.
"Zahriya Marrakech" operates within a broader framework of preserving intangible urban heritage, which encompasses traditional crafts, social practices, and the characteristic scents of the place. This area is garnering increasing attention from organizations like UNESCO. The initiative is not solely focused on tourism; it also seeks to document and pass down knowledge related to the techniques of flower gathering and the preparation of traditional perfumes across generations, especially in light of the rapid changes in the urban fabric.
Notably, bitter orange trees adorn many squares and traditional courtyards (riads) in Marrakech, traditionally used in the production of perfumes and "water of flower," a local drink, making the scent a fundamental element of the sensory identity of the city. Such initiatives are part of local efforts to maintain Marrakech’s cultural uniqueness in the face of globalization and modern urban challenges that might obscure some of the intangible aspects of heritage.
Local artisans participate in this experience, explaining the process of extracting perfume from flowers, from the stages of picking, sorting, to distillation, according to inherited methods, providing an opportunity to learn about a facet of traditional artisanal economy. Heritage specialists note that interest in olfactory memory represents a global trend in heritage preservation, as scents can evoke memories and emotions tied to specific places and times with a power that often surpasses images.
In the coming period, collaboration is expected between the initiative’s organizers and researchers in anthropology and oral history to document the narratives and practices associated with the Naranj fragrance in the memories of elderly original residents of Marrakech. The organizing bodies also plan to expand the project to include training workshops for young people eager to learn the fundamentals of this traditional craft as a means of preserving it from extinction.
The next step will be to assess the initiative’s impact on cultural and social levels one year after its launch and to explore the possibility of implementing a similar model to preserve other distinctive traditional scents in other Moroccan and Arab cities.
As reported by aljareeda.net.
