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German, Jordanian teams working to restore, preserve uncompleted palace

AMMAN - After over a century, Germany finally has the chance to return the favour for one of the most monumental gifts ever given.

German teams are working to restore and preserve Qasr Mushatta, a sprawling palace built under Umayyad Caliph Walid II that was never completed due to the turmoil towards the end of the empire, according to the Department of Antiquities (DoA).

This project has particular importance to Germany, as the uncompleted palace's ornate façade, an excellent example of early Islamic art, was given by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid to Kaiser Wilhelm II as a gift at the turn of the 20th century and currently sits in the Berlin Museum of Islamic Art.

"We put this project at high importance, and we have been interested in giving back to the site for years," Gunter Schauerte, deputy director general of the National Museums in Berlin, said during a visit earlier this week to Qasr Mushatta, located some 30 kilometres outside Amman near Queen Alia International Airport.

The palace's western façade was highlighted in the 2004 Faces of the Orient exhibition, which showcased artefacts spanning thousands of years of Jordanian culture and heritage and spurred cooperation between Germany and the DoA.

During German Ambassador Joachim Heidorn's visit to Qasr Mushatta on Tuesday, project director Johannes Cramer of the Berlin Institute of Technology highlighted the progress of the three-year restoration project, funded by the German Research Foundation and the German government, which aims to preserve what is believed to be the Kingdom's best example of Umayyad architecture.

DoA Director General Fawwaz Khraysheh, who studied in Germany and visited the famed western façade in Berlin as a student, said the project is a result of diplomacy and goodwill.

"Preserving the site was a priority for the department, and we saw it as nice cooperation between the two countries to leave something for the Jordanian people," he told The Jordan Times.

While surveying the palace, which was built around 742AD, experts took samples of mortar, brick, and ash from the surrounding area last year and sent them to labs in Germany for analysis.

The team then utilised the composition analysis to produce bricks and mortar in the same style in which they were made 1,200 years ago for use in the restoration.

This year, the team focused on the western walls of the palace's main structure, and have acted to prevent collapse due to centuries of weathering.

The German-Jordanian team is exerting all efforts to maintain the original brick and stone, but in some cases resort to casting new blocks, Cramer said, noting that 85 per cent of the stones for the arches are available and experts will reproduce stones in order to partly restore the grand entrance to the main palace.

German geophysicists are also working at the site to guide future excavations, Cramer added, with ongoing work revealing rows of columns similar to those at the Amman Citadel, and that the grand palace once had mosaic flooring and walls.

The geophysicists are also working to determine how long the palace was inhabited before being abandoned.

The team will continue restoration and reconstruction work into 2011, while in its final year, 2012, the focus will shift towards site management and tourism development, such as providing interpretation for tourists, in cooperation with the department.

"Tour groups need to appreciate what a monumental and beautiful site this truly is," Cramer said, adding that experts aim to analyse the dozens of inscriptions made by various tribes who stopped at the area, some over a millennia old.

The Berlin Museum of Islamic Art, which will provide a replica of the western part of the façade for the Jordanian National Museum, is also working to record and preserve the eastern façade, which still stands at the site.

According to specialists, the eastern façade differs from its more famous western half, as its geometric designs are more floral - indicating artistic evolution during the palace's construction.

Next month, the department will begin parallel restoration work on the unfinished palace's outer walls, in order to eliminate the visual pollution of nearby factories and industrial estates that have sprouted up over the last decade.

"We are looking to transform the site and give visitors the feeling of what it was once like," Khraysheh said, underlining that the site's proximity to Amman gives Jordanians the opportunity to picnic there "and learn of our history".

By Taylor Luck

© Jordan Times 2010