Global Heritage Fund’s mission is to empower communities through historic preservation beyond monuments®. With support from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, we are delighted to join forces with the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project to improve heritage protection through the new From Training to Implementation: Awards Presented by Global Heritage Fund.
Supported by Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, and the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund (CPF) and based at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester, and Durham, the EAMENA project was established in 2015 to respond to the increasing threats to archaeological sites in the MENA region. The EAMENA project and its database integrates aerial, satellite and ground observed information. The prime purpose of the CPF grant to the EAMENA project is to provide training in new methodologies to assess threats to significant archaeological sites that have not yet been recorded, and thus improve the chances of monitoring and protecting these sites in the future. 21 workshops for over 150 participants from 7 countries have taken place since November 2017.
Read below about the progress of 2019 Awards by Global Heritage Fund recipients Dana AlSalamin, Rudaina Almomani, and Shatha Mubaideen. Dana, Rudaina, and Shatha participated in the EAMENA Project’s Training Scheme, funded by the CPF in 2018.
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Dana AlSalamin, Rudaina Almomani, and Shatha Mubaideen
Documentation of Heritage Houses in Amman-Jordan
Dana, Rudaina, and Shatha grew up in Amman, surrounded by historic landmarks such as colorful Rainbow Street in the Jabal Amman neighborhood. Elders shared tales of the historic houses throughout the city, passing appreciation to the three young women.
“Seeing these beautiful buildings and their amazing details made us feel the importance of documenting the cultural sites,” explains Dana, “and we still see them often today. Many of those heritage buildings are now adaptively reused as cultural spaces, restaurants or cafes that we visit regularly. Jabal Amman is truly the heart of cosmopolitan Amman.”
Despite the historic nature of these buildings and local appreciation of their history, few resources are available to support documentation and protection of the homes. Time is running out, as the houses are threatened by a variety of dangers. As recently as August 2019, a sudden gas canister explosion in Jabal Amman completely destroyed a historic house in use as a restaurant. “The good news is no one got hurt,” says Dana, “but unfortunately the building completely exploded. Sadly, it was undocumented — and now it’s completely lost.”
Spurred to fund documentation of these historic buildings before it was too late, the team of an archaeologist, architect, and geomatics engineer applied for the 2019 GHF Awards. With funding from the award, they are documenting these historic buildings and attempting to preserve the cultural values attached to the houses. The team has already created a Facebook page for the program and presented at the International Conference on Tourism Management and Heritage Conservation (July 23-26, 2019) at Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan. They have also commenced conducting fieldwork and entering data into the EAMENA database, including site visits, site assessments , and interviews with stakeholders and heritage professionals. To date, they have documented 100 sites total and entered 75 sites of those sites into EAMENA database.
In addition, the team organized a one-day workshop on November 12 at the school of architecture in Amman Arab University to present the project. Other EAMENA trainees also participated in the project activities for documenting historical houses.
The Amman team knows that documentation and capacity building are crucial for protecting cultural heritage. They’ve planned multiple heritage conservation workshops at Jordanian universities in order to increase awareness and engage younger generations in protecting Amman’s historic buildings. As Dana says, “documenting cultural buildings is important not only in crisis situations. Disturbances can happen anywhere, anytime.”
Presenting at the International Conference on Tourism Management and Heritage Conservation (July 23-26, 2019) at Hashemite University, Zarqa (Jordan).
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From Training to Implementation: Awards Presented by Global Heritage Fund aim to fund community capacity building, training, and grassroots protection of endangered heritage in the MENA region. This year, we have selected three documentation projects by heritage experts trained by the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project (EAMENA) for protecting threatened cultural heritage across the MENA region.
Photo of project site in Amman, Jordan: Shatha Mubaideen