A group of experts have helped restore a 500-year-old palace in Yemen, writes Michael Jansen in Rada
Archaeologists, diplomats, and journalists converged on the dusty town of Rada in Yemen last month to celebrate the reconstruction of the splendid 16th-century Amiriya palace and its painted mosque. The three-storey princely palace, crowned with domes and pierced by graceful Arab arches, shimmers like a great white wedding cake amid the humble chocolate coloured mud-brick blocks of Rada. Built by Sultan Amir ibn Abdel Wahhab, the last ruler of the Tahirid dynasty which ruled between 1454 and 1517, the Amiriya is one of the largest of Yemen's grand monuments and the most ornate.
The foundation stone, which bears the sultan's name, was laid in August-September 1504. Dr Selma Radi, who launched and carried out the restoration project, estimates that the construction of the Amiriya took five years. "It took us 23 years to bring it back to what it was," she observed. Dr Radi, an Iraqi archaeologist awarded her doctorate jointly by Columbia University and the University of Amsterdam, first visited the Amiriya 25 years ago while engaged in a Dutch technical aid programme to establish the National Museum in Sanaa. She convinced the Dutch, who were building urban and agricultural infrastructure in Rada, to preserve its most important cultural monument, the Amiriya.
At that time, the palace was in an appalling state and the Yemeni government was seeking external financial and technical aid to rescue it. Unesco sent foreign experts who estimated that it would cost $5 million (€4.2 million) to save the Amiriya. But Abdel Karim Iriyani, the senior Yemeni political figure who became godfather of the project, dismissed this sum as too high. He argued that the restoration could be done for less in "the Yemeni way" by using traditional materials and craftsmen. The Dutch agreed and signed a joint financing agreement with Yemen in April 1982. Iriyani commanded Dr Radi, "Go to Rada and become a builder." This is precisely what she did.
She began by enlisting foremost stonemason in the Rada region, Usta (Master) 'Izzi Muhammad Gas'a, a devout man in his late sixties who accepted only half pay because it was a religious building. Work began in November 1982 with a clear-out of centuries-old rubbish inside and outside the Amiriya. In March 1983 'Izzi Gas'a started to shore up the foundations and the buckled and crumbling outer walls. A second usta, his cousin, Abdullah Rizk, began work on the interior of the first floor where Dr Radi found what she believes to be the world's first shower stalls. Since most of the workers were from Rada, the project provided employment, boosting the town's economy.
Once the external fabric of the Amiriya had been reconstituted and repaired, Dr Radi, the supervisor on the Dutch side, and Yehya Nasiri, who was in charge from the Yemeni side, had to tackle the problem of recreating qudad, the substance which traditional builders used to clad the building. Qudad is a water-proofing plaster employed in Yemen on external surfaces of monuments and fine houses from the eighth century BC - when it was used on the sluices of the ancient Sabean Marib dam - until the introduction of cement in the 1970s. From Yemen, qudad spread to the Roman Empire and India.
Qudad is made of freshly fired lime slaked in water for fixed periods of time and mixed with fine sand, pebbles or volcanic ash. Qudad can be applied only to stone or baked brick surfaces and can be tailored for different uses. The first layer is pounded into cracks and crevasses until it adheres, other layers are applied and smoothed.
Then comes the most labour-intensive and time-consuming stage. This involves constant burnishing until there are no cracks and the surface is as smooth as marble. Finally it is rubbed with animal fat to make it waterproof until it dries and sets into man- made limestone. The process can take as long as a year.
Since Yemeni craftsmen had forgotten the recipes for the various types of qudad, the Amiriya team had to reinvent qudad and perfect its use by trial and error. Now that the lost art of making and applying qudad has been recovered, it can be used on other Yemeni monuments. In the view of Dr Radi, is one of "man's most ingenious inventions, and worth the time and cost" of using it. "Since the original qudad lasted for 500 years, we hope our qudad will last another 500 years," she said.
A second time-consuming part of the project was the restoration of the stucco decorating the prayer niche and walls of the small mosque. Dr Radi and an assistant spent 15 years cleaning the intricately carved stucco, scraping away the dirt and over- painting of centuries. She began with dental tools but found metal too harsh.
One day inn 1998, she strode into the office in Rome of the Centro de Conservazione Archeologica and proposed that its experts tackle the Amiriya's badly damaged painted surfaces.
Roberto Nardi and his colleagues, who had worked on the Roman forum, the Capitoline Museum, and the town of Zuegma in Turkey, accepted. The Italian teams not only restored the Amiriya's painted walls, arches and domes to their former glory but also trained six Yemenis to maintain the Amiriya and carry on this work elsewhere.
Dr Radi pointed to the flowing floral patterns overhead. "They used Indian motifs, probably taken from Kashmir shawls. The workers who built the Amiriya put all of their skills into this building. It is a record of their art. They knew the Tahirid era was coming to an end. Tribesmen were attacking."
She said the Amiriya was the final project of an enlightened dynasty which imposed order, built roads, expanded trade, improved agriculture, and brought prosperity to Yemen.
Funding for work on the Amiriya's physical fabric came from the Yemeni and Dutch governments. Holland and Italy underwrote the restoration of the 600 square meters of beautiful tempera painting.
The American Institute of Yemeni Studies in Sanaa provided administrative assistance. The cost is estimated at $3.5 million (€2.9 million), well below the sum quoted by Unesco a quarter century ago.
Over the years, Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is set to preside over the official opening next month, paid frequent unannounced visits, calling out, "Selma, where is Selma," as he crossed the threshhold. She was prime mover, fundraiser, and conservator.
One Yemeni who worked on the project told her, "I can remember when you came to Yemen, Rada was a ruin and you were very young." Another Yemeni remarked to her mother, Suad, "Selma has only one defect. She's not a man." When Suad asked what if Selma were a man, the Yemeni replied, "She'd be our president."
Today, the initially hostile people of Rada are proud of the Amiriya and of their role in its restoration. Dr Radi is a local and national heroine.
The Amiriya has been nominated to receive the prestigious Agha Khan Foundation prize when next awarded in 2007. Now that the Amiriya has been saved, Dr Radi and her Amiriya-trained teams are preparing to tackle another of Yemen's 44 painted mosques or a neglected palace.
"I love this country, I'll never leave."