Baghdad - Al-Forat
Maintenance and restoration work has begun at Al-Mustansiriya Madrasa in Baghdad under the supervision of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, in an 18-month project to treat the damp and salts threatening its brick walls and to restore its ornamentation and inscriptions, which date back to the seventh century AH.
The board’s project director told Al-Forat that the work covers the façade overlooking the Tigris, the inner arcades and the iwans around the courtyard, stressing that the building will remain open to visitors throughout, with the sections under restoration partially closed and safe routes laid out for visitors.
The threat of damp and salt
He said rising groundwater and the building’s proximity to the river had allowed damp to seep into the foundations of the walls, eroding the bricks and crumbling the brick ornamentation in places, adding that the team would use modern techniques to insulate the foundations and draw salts out of the walls without touching the original material.
The team includes Iraqi engineers and restorers working with international experts in the conservation of brick buildings. The first phase began with digital documentation of the building using 3D laser scanning, to produce precise maps of every wall and decoration before any intervention begins.
A seat of learning eight centuries old
Al-Mustansiriya Madrasa, completed in 631 AH during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mustansir Billah, is considered one of the oldest universities in the world. It housed halls for teaching the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence as well as medicine, mathematics and astronomy, along with a rich library and a famous water clock that historians described in detail.
Heritage specialists are calling for the project to be part of a wider plan to revive the area around the madrasa in old Rusafa, home to historic markets and buildings such as Souq Al-Saray, the Qishla and Khan Murjan, and to turn it into an integrated tourist and cultural trail linking Al-Mutanabbi Street with the banks of the Tigris.
The project director said the board would organise tours for engineering and archaeology students during the works so they can follow the stages of restoration, as part of a programme to train a new generation of specialists in the conservation of heritage buildings.
