Homs-Sana
As soon as the visitor sets foot in Al-Zahrawi Palace, which is located in the lanes of the old city of Homs, he will feel the grandeur and splendor of this place. I landed in the palace.
The palace is located on Omar Al-Mukhtar Street, with an area of 600 square meters, built of black basalt stone, consisting of two floors, topped by domes, in addition to the presence of a water fountain at its main entrance, which is the oldest water fountain in Homs. It was used in the Mamluk period.
Raja Bilal, the director of the palace, explained in an interview with SANA that the southern wing on the ground floor of the palace constitutes an important weight, as it was a ruling suite, and is characterized by an iwan, a scalloped dome, stalactites, and corner niches. The builder of the palace is Ali ibn Musa al-Azhari.
Bilal pointed to the discovery of burials and archaeological finds in the basements of the palace during the excavations in 1990, dating back to the Byzantine period, considering that what distinguishes the palace is the state of symmetry on which the halls, iwans and rooms were built, knowing that it was not a house for housing, but rather a house for government, and it comes in second place after the Citadel of Homs.
According to Bilal Khan, the palace used a miniature in which the merchants rested. The two narrow stairs on the eastern and western sides to ascend to the second floor of the palace lead to two iwans and two balconies overlooking the heavenly expanse.
Regarding the renovations carried out for the palace since 2015 until now, after the defeat of terrorism from the old city of Homs, Bilal indicated that some of the damaged domes on the northern side of the palace and the Ottoman pavilion that was used as a guest house have been restored and some muqarnas and parts of the scalloped dome that have been remodeled.
A committee was formed from specialized archaeologists at the Department of Antiquities and Museums in Homs, which prepared a complete architectural and civil study of the palace with a modern vision to put it for investment in order to carry out a complete restoration of the palace with an agreement on the work mechanism that qualifies it to be a museum of popular traditions.
The walls and halls of the palace were also decorated with about 30 paintings produced by the Department of Antiquities in Homs on the restorations carried out for many ancient buildings damaged by the war.
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