Plan to restore Syria’s heritage
Workmen in Aleppo fix buildings left shattered by war
IN THE rubble-strewn square outside Aleppo’s ancient citadel and under the scorched vaults of its covered souk, workmen are starting to mend the destruction of a war that has shattered the Syrian city’s priceless historical heritage.
About 20 volunteers sorted through the debris in Khan al-Gumruk, one of the souk’s great medieval inns, piling up the stones from a fallen archway that can be used in its restoration. About 30% of the Old City suffered “catastrophic” damage in the fighting that ended in December, said Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director-general of antiquities. Officials were working on a plan to save what they could.
The Aga Khan Development Network’s cultural arm said it was also looking at rehabilitation of the area.
Aleppo is one of the Middle East’s great historic centres. Today, the lingering smell of burning is everywhere in its Old City: under collapsed domes, in the soot-blackened souk and in the cracked masonry, broken glass and discarded bullet casings that litter the famous Umayyad Mosque.
However, people are returning. In the mosque’s courtyard, a group of teenage boys huddled for a selfie in front of walls peppered with bullets.
Inside, an old man stood sobbing in the dark near a shrine, a barricade of oil drums and sandbags behind it.
When fighting erupted in Aleppo in 2012, a year after the rising against President Bashar al-Assad had begun elsewhere in Syria, rebels took its eastern districts and much of the Old City. Intense clashes in 2012 and 2013 made the souks and the area around the Umayyad Mosque one of the fiercest front lines in Syria.
Under the painted cupola of the Mamlouk throne hall in the Citadel, a heavy machine-gun on a stand is pointed towards a window. The Citadel, a dramatic fortress on a hill, was held by the government but surrounded by rebel territory. The area to its south and west, near the Umayyad Mosque, is where the Old City suffered most damage.
“The memory of Aleppo is very symbolic,” said Abdulkarim, Syria’s antiquities director-general. Restoration would meet the requirements of international bodies, he said, and no modern buildings would be put up in the Old City.
Both sides in the continuing war have accused each other of targeting or damaging historical sites, which range from ancient cities, temples, mosques and castles to the relics of Ottoman rule.
Ali Esmaiel, head of the Aga Khan Cultural Service in Syria, said the charity was looking at a framework for the rehabilitation of the Old City. – Reuters