Kershef

Kershef (also karshef) is the traditional building material of Siwa Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert: lumps of hardened salt from the edges of the oasis's salt lakes, bound with mud. It was used to build Shali, the fortified old town of Siwa, whose houses were roofed with palm trunks.

Material

The salt forms as a crust on the shores of Siwa's lakes. Builders mixed it with local silt as a binder and built thick walls of salt and mud, with local silts and oxides used for decoration. The material suits a place where it almost never rains, but it is vulnerable to water: salt, mud and plaster resist weather and erosion poorly, and many of Shali's buildings gradually fell into ruin once they were no longer maintained.

Roofs

Shali's roofs were built of palm trunks, with palm wood also used for ceilings. Siwan builders soaked palm wood in salt-lake water to remove the sap that attracts biting insects. Olive wood was used for reinforcement, doors and window frames.

Shali

Shali is dated to about 1203 AD (600 AH). A restoration and revival project, completed in 2020, was carried out by EQI with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities as client. It restored kershef buildings as a non-residential zone for small Siwan businesses and added new community facilities.

Significance

Kershef is one of very few vernacular building materials based on salt. Its survival depends on the oasis's extreme aridity, and it shows how desert builders combined whatever local materials were available, salt, mud and palm, into a complete wall-and-roof system.