Emergency archeology 3: a century of change at Aleppo’s Madrasa al-Halawiyya
Over the past 12 months, since finding Creswell’s photographs of the Madrasa al-Halawiyye in the V&A archive, we have searched for historic and contemporary images of the madrasa in online archives and websites. The result is a compilation of the changing state of the site since 1909; we also now know how this special building has survived the war, with the first photographs emerging on Facebook in January 2017.
Like any building — in fact more than most — the Madrasa al-Halawiyya has gone through changes of style and substance. In just the last century it has turned from being a madrasa to a mosque, and it has also undergone changes of form and decoration, inside and out. We know this largely from the photographic record. Photographs by Gertrude Bell in 1909, K.A.C. Creswell in 1919 and unknown photographers in the 1930s demonstrate that the mosque in 2007 was quite different from that in 1970, and that in 2010 was different again. Over the 107 years to 2017 there were at least five distinct cycles of addition, dilapidation and restoration. The photographs we found on the internet demonstrated that there was no obvious or definitive state that any future restorer should aspire to, but that the museum archives and internet record created informed choices and more and better data to work with. Our big question in late 2016, though, was what had happened to the madrasa in the war?
In Autumn 2016 we found from Facebook and other internet sources that since at least June 2013 work had been carried out by Aleppan archeologists and architects to protect the Madrassa, with a block work screen erected around the mihrab and sandbagging of doors. However no further information about the present state came out until early in January 2017, after the lifting of the siege.
In the meantime, we obtained exceptionally good contemporary high resolution prints of the madrasa from Ross Burns, an antiquarian, academic and former Australian ambassador to Syria who has photographed and written about numerous Islamic sites in the region. Omniya Abdel Barr, a research scholar at the V&A, found two historical prints of the madrasa published recently on Facebook by the Aleppo Museum of Photography — these filled a gap in the time sequence. Further detail came from a PhD thesis by Adil Abbu published in Edinburgh in 1970. Then in January 2017 a series taken by Aleppan architect Louay Dakhel — also first published on Facebook — revealed the condition of the madrasa after the Syrian regime’s capture of central Aleppo in December 2016. A shell or mortar round had pierced the semidome of the apse, resulting in its partial collapse and damage to two of the six Byzantine capitals. An intense but localised fire has caused smoke and possibly heat damage to the two wind-blown acanthus capitals. Reports indicate however that the stone structure of the madrasa is otherwise intact. Google Maps has 360 degree photographs that show more precisely the damage to the interior and exterior here.
Externally, damage is superficial, the mihrab we think is intact behind its protected screen, but all of the fine architectural ironwork, wooden fenestration and doors and shutters that predate 1919 (see Creswell and Burns) are lost.
The images by Bell, Creswell, Burns, Dakhel and others unknown constitute a remarkable pictorial record of the evolution of a building over a century and more and demonstrate a number of distinct periods of change, starting in 1909. These records can give new and informed choices to conservators should funds become available for repair and restoration.
The apse in the prayer hall
In the early period, from 1909–1919, the hall is empty of furniture. Bell’s photographs show clearly that the limestone/granite columns have been painted in faux marble and are in reasonable condition, but there are already signs of the chips and wear visible in later 20th Century photographs. The marbelling is not clearly visible in Creswell, but is also recorded by Herzfeld and other visits up to around 2000.
After Bell, and before Creswell, a spearpoint-topped screen has been placed around the semicircle of the apse, between the columns.
Some time after Creswell’s visit in 1919 a dado was painted on plaster around the walls and a frieze around the drum and ceiling-rose atop the Ayyubid dome. A stone mausoleum entrance inserted between the two central pillars of the apse (the two with spectacular wind-blown acanthus leaf capitals) appears to the casual visitor to be quite ancient, but the portico post-dates Creswell’s visit in 1919 and even belies its inscription of 1325H. (1905). The Aleppo Photography Library print, probably from the inter-war period, shows the stone portico in situ.
After 1970 the madrasa became a mosque. In photographs taken between 2000 and 2007 a stove, neon lighting, modern chandeliers and other furniture have been introduced. The screen around the apse is gone except that two of the screen doors visible in Creswell’s photographs remain within a remnant, lower and pushed back from the columns, and possibly pre-dating the screen shown in Creswell’s photographs.
There are still a few traces of the faux marble paint on the architrave above the columns and further distress to the columns, especially at the base.
Some time after 2010, and before the uprising, an apparently aggressive restoration programme has begun, with the stripping away of all plaster from the interior; this reveals the stone construction of the Ayyubid dome, the brick-arch construction technique of the byzantine semidome, as well as the original plinths of the columns, which had been hidden by at least 40cms of earth floor that had built up over the previous millennia. This work was presumably halted by the uprising.
The last of this series was taken in January 2017 by Aleppan architect Louay Dakhel. A shell or mortar round has pierced the semidome of the apse, resulting in its partial collapse and the destruction of two of the six Byzantine capitals. An intense but localised fire has caused smoke and possibly heat damage to the two wind-blown acanthus capitals.
The courtyard and west elevation
Dakhel’s image of the east elevation, taken in January 2017, is one of desolation rather than destruction. The great dome is pockmarked by bullet holes with some slight fire or smoke damage and cracking. All of the fine architectural ironwork, wooden fenestration and doors and shutters that predate 1919 (see Creswell and Burns) are lost. The glazed screen constructed across the iwan after 1919 has been shattered in a blast that a contemporary photograph shows occurred in 2013, but the brass gate below it, depicted in Creswell’s photographs, is an extraordinary survivor. An Ottoman bay window above the dormitories has been destroyed and the north wall of the courtyard from which it hung is now no more than a facade, the building behind it eradicated. A canopy over the doorway has disappeared sometime around 2000.
The mihrab
The mihrab was protected from snipers’ stray bullets behind a block work screen erected by Syrian archaeologists in June 2013 . We can probably assume that that has been no damage post-dating 2013 (there was some beforehand) and also that without such protection it would have met the same fate as the wooden windows, doors and shutters. The rear wall of the iwan is pockmarked by bullet holes.
What now? Well the war isn’t over and it could return to Aleppo. Until any firm peace and for some time after, questions of reconstruction and conservation will be academic; then they will be for the people of Aleppo and Syria to resolve, hopefully with access to funds unattached to ideological strings from whatever source they come. An interesting question remains the intention of the restoration work carried out in 2010–11 that stripped the structure back to the stone. If anyone out there knows, please let us know!
This article is the third in a series. See also:
Emergency archeology 1: a dig in the V&A’s photography archive
Emergency archeology 2: prototyping a digital Creswell archive of Islamic architecture
