Matmata is a small town in Southern Tunisia. The Berber underground homes of Matmata, called troglodyte, were built to avoid the intense heat and strong desert winds. These houses were created by digging a large pit in the ground. Around the perimeter of this pit, artificial caves were then dug to be used as rooms.
Many families left the underground houses when new towns and villages were built in the 1960s and 1970s as part of modernisation, but some locals have remained living with their families in their underground households till today.
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