ⴰⵅⵅⴰⵎ ⵅⴰⴷⵉⵊⴰ

The Cave Homes of Matmâta

Useful Information

Location:	Matmâta, Tunisia. Follow road southwest out of Gabes, which leads to New Matmâta. 450 km south of Tunis, 43 km south of Gabes, 60 km west of Medenine. (33.5421566, 9.9685448)
Open:	Dar Khadija Museum: All year daily 9-17. Hotel Sidi Idriss: All year daily. [2025]
Fee:	Dar Khadija Museum: Adults TND 8. [2025]
Classification:	Höhlenwohnungen
Light:	Electric Light
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1976	filming location in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Description

F090-100 — Matmata cave house. Public Domain.

F090-101 — Matmata cave house. Public Domain.

On the slope of a hill the cave village of Matmâta is located. At this place the Berber people dig their homes out of the ground for more than 1000 years. There are more than 100 underground houses, there is even a subterranean hotel now.

It is very useful to build subterranean homes in hot arid climates. Underground, the temperature is always the same. At night when the desert is very cold, it is comfortably warm in the cave, and at day when the sun burns down, the caves are cool.

The houses are built around artificial craters, 5 to 10 meters deep, with doors and windows in the steep walls towards the crater. Those craters look like a patio or a Roman atrium, and the lower part of the walls is often painted white. Sometimes several of those craters are connected by a labyrinth of tunnels. But most of the houses are a single crater with several rooms around, used for living, sleeping or stooring food. This style of building cave houses is rather common in Northern Africa, but nowhere so many nice examples exist.

Matmâta was one location for the movie Star Wars. At the beginning of the first movie, this was the location for the home of Luke Skywalkers Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen Lars, in the town of Sidi Driss on the desert planet Tatooine. The scenes of the patio were filmed at ⴰⵙⴻⵏⵙⵓ ⵙⵉⴷⵉ ⴷⵔⵉⵙ (Hotel Sidi Driss, Hotel Sidi Idriss), which provides Berber-style accommodation for its visitors. Of course, the crater was filled with some technologic stuff, like droids and evaporators to make it look futuristic, but the style of the cave house was alien enough to make anybody believe it was on a remote planet. This was actually not the last movie which was filmed here. The movie La soif noire, an adaptation of the book from Swiss author Hans Ruesch starring Antonio Banderas and Freida Pinto was also filmed here. And the city and the outskirts of Matmata are the location of various Call of Duty missions.

The best way to visit Matama today, are organised coach tours, which include all entrance fees. They can be booked at many tourist hotels at the beaches or at local tour operators. Depending on the operator they may visit a private home where they have organised a visit. That’s the reason why we are actually at a loss to list specific sites. Most hotels and numerous private homes may be visited, but there are no regular open hours for the private homes, and the hotels require that you rent a room.

Rather new is the museum ⴰⵅⵅⴰⵎ ⵅⴰⴷⵉⵊⴰ or متحف دار خديجة (Musée Dar Khadija, Dar Khadija Museum) in matmata shaabet smaala. It shows typical caves with typical furniture, and explains the construction and use of the cave houses.