Aleppo-SANA
The restoration works of the Great Umayyad Mosque in the city of Aleppo reveal the extent of the craftsmanship of the skilled Aleppo hands, who are creative in carving and polishing its stones and restoring them to what they were before their destruction by the terrorists. The rebirth of this archaeological and cultural edifice.
The director of the Great Umayyad Mosque Restoration Project, Dr. Sakhr Olabi, indicated in a statement to SANA reporter that the restoration work in the mosque continues with the efforts of the work team, which includes technical expertise representing all parties concerned with the reconstruction and restoration of this archaeological edifice, which has passed for more than 1,300 years, and has been subjected to natural calamities over time. Including earthquakes or humanity represented by the black terrorism that destroyed its minaret and ruined its stones in the internal facades, its courtyard and the roofs.
Olabi pointed out that a work strategy was developed to restore the various sections of the mosque, to deal with the effects of the ruins of collapsed parts and cracked columns, and to restore the most serious ones. The installation of wooden doors and archways, and the perforated external ceilings were also treated, and the stone decorations on the roofs were restored and installed.
Olabi added that the eastern part of the mosque was completely demolished, as it was rebuilt, and it consists of two parts. The first part is called the Hijaziyya “the small chapel” and the second part is the eastern gallery separating the Hijaziyya from the tribal one. Work is underway to complete its construction, which organically overlaps with one of the city’s markets. The old facade, which led to a delay in its completion, as for the northern façade, the work of cleaning its stones from fire along with the ceiling is done manually, in addition to the restoration work of the western part of the mosque with the entrance.
Olabi explained that the minaret of the mosque, which was completely destroyed by the terrorists, constitutes one of the three distinctive features of the mosque that integrates with the tribal and the mosque’s “floor” nave with an integrated engineering plate, as its stones were re-sorted and numbered and documented according to computer programs according to the layers of its construction, which is composed of It has two external and internal parts that contain a staircase that will be re-installed and built on vaults as it was before, and 60 building layers have been completed from the minaret out of 80 layers, with a height of 30 meters out of 45 meters.
Olabi said that the restoration work also includes the four entrances to the mosque, including: The main one, which is relatively recent and dates back to the fifties of the last century, along with the outer courtyard, and is part of the main facade that extends over a distance of 80 meters.
SANA camera monitored the work of restoring the stone facades and rebuilding the minaret and the main entrance, where the implementation director of the Military Construction Corporation, Eng. Anas Sadiq, stated that the restoration work has reached advanced stages, and the construction of the minaret and the installation of stone inscriptions on it are being completed, and the tribal work has been completed by 90 percent, in addition to To close the hole in the eastern portico towards the city markets, and in the northwest corner that forms the entrance to the mosque, as it surrounds the minaret and was subjected to great damage, explaining that documented studies were submitted to it and matched it on the ground and witnessed some differences, and the appropriate choice was made after dismantling the entrance stones and preparing the special stalactites. Using it and relying on the plans, and preparing the building layers on the ground, rebuilding them, and reaching advanced stages of work.
With regard to the study of the windows near the entrance and the minaret, the study presented by Dr. Abdel Moneim Al-Harbali was referred to for the construction of the entrance façade, and it includes two solutions for the arches: the first is the pointed arches, which are consistent with the mosque’s tribalism, and the second is the lobed arches taken from the upper layers of the minaret, whose construction was approved in 1950, and now The pointed arches that are consistent with the mosque's 50 interior arches were adopted, according to what was approved by the technical committee for the completion of the mosque, and the foreign elements were removed from the mosque and the stone facade was shown in the same perspective as the mosque.
The specialist in woodwork and its treatment, Saad Ismail, talked about the stages of manual manufacturing of wooden arches and their installation on the mosque’s nave, consisting of walnut and oak wood.
Qusai Razzouk
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