Lecture 2. North Africa and the Near Middle East

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Kathryn Rogers Merlino


from the module:

Global Conservation: Preservation, Reuse And Sustainability

The lecture will focus on sites in the region of North Africa and the Middle East that share aspects of their cultural histories and today face many of the same threats to their historic sites. This lecture will look at long-standing traditions and impacts of preservation and building reuse through historic patterns, the lens of colonization, the Muslim waaf system that inserts a complexity to preservation through a complex, long-established religious body having purview over land and buildings, and the lack of protection from looting and destruction that inherently fills a conflict-filled region. Themes: Colonialism and multi-layered histories; Waaf system; protecting archeological artifacts; favoring new vs. traditional; conflict and politics. Sites: Fez el Bali, Morocco, 8th century CE (urban) Bab Mahrouk Gateway, Fesz, Morocco, 12th century CE (infrastructure) Petra, Jordan, before 1st century BCE (urban/monument) Taybet Zaman, Jordan, 19th century CE (heritage café/tourism)

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