Rihab (Jordan) (AFP)
Kneeling at the foot of the old altar, the Jordanian restorer and his Syrian colleague restore luster to the pavement of a ruined Byzantine cathedral in Rihab, in a region of northern Jordan home to some of the oldest churches in the world.
The two men are among the 300 people hired since 2019 by Unesco as part of an unprecedented program intended to create jobs in heritage preservation to fight poverty and unemployment among the local Jordanian population and Syrian refugees. .
In Rihab, not far from the Syrian border and 70 km north of Amman, 32 old churches have been identified but only the ruins of five of them are visible, such as those of Saint George's Cathedral erected in 230. The sand covered the others.
Walid al-Awad, who fled the war in Syria in 2012, and Taha al-Khazaleh, from Rihab, reconstruct a mosaic.
Each one carefully places old brown, white or black tesserae with his hammer on the platform of the Saint John the Baptist church built in 619.
The designs represent the Tigris and the Euphrates, trees, geometric figures or flowers.
On the ground, an old inscription in Greek specifies that the mosaic was financed by the inhabitants of the city in honor of Saint John the Baptist.
In the adjoining church erected in 590 which bears the name of two Byzantine bishops of the 4th century, Procopius and Sergius, stonemasons restore pilasters or plinths.
Under the supervision of Franco Sciorilli, a 54-year-old Italian expert, the work started in October is due to be completed at the end of May.
The restoration of the mosaic floor of the Church of St. Mary, built in 543, was completed in January.
Jordan is "the first country in the world to have so many mosaic floors, especially Byzantine floors," said Sciorilli, who has trained 500 people in the restoration and protection of mosaics since his arrival in 1994.
In Rihab, he assures us, "the mosaics are very simple but are executed with a particular technique and their style is specific to the region".
- "Train to preserve" -
"We had two objectives during this difficult period: the preservation of heritage and the creation of jobs for the inhabitants of the region", explains Dania Dirani, project manager at Unesco.
Of the 600 candidates, half were chosen by favoring the most needy.
Two-thirds of applicants must be Jordanians, and the rest must be Syrians.
They must live in the village of Rihab and 20% of the total are women.
Those selected, explains Ms. Dirani, receive training in the history of the site and the churches, learn about mosaic work and restoration, and how to behave in a historic site.
The unskilled worker receives 12.5 dinars (14.6 euros) per day and the skilled worker receives 15 dinars, in addition to meals and transport, in a country where the unemployment rate is 23%.
For Walid al-Awad, 45, who lost his house and store in the neighboring Syrian town of Daraa, the UN project "Jobs for the preservation of Jordanian cultural heritage" is a godsend.
"I am proud to participate in the restoration and maintenance of historic monuments. Financially, it saved me and I gained real experience", assures this father of six children.
Holder of a mosaic restoration diploma, Taha al-Khazaleh, 32, says he is "happy to join this project because it is my specialty and it allows me to earn a monthly salary of 300 dinars".
After the restoration in Rihab is emerging a "very important project, which will represent a change in approach to heritage preservation," assures Giorgia Cesaro, head of the project at Unesco.
"It will take into account the situation of people and communities living near archaeological sites. The idea is to train them so that it is they who preserve their heritage," she said.
The objective of the new pilot project, funded by the European Union and the amount of which has not been disclosed, is to employ 1,000 people for the protection of six sites in the north of the country.
© 2021 AFP