Historical overview:

The Maara museum in Khan Murad Pacha is one of the important and specialized museums of mosaics in the north of Syria housing archeological artifacts and mosaics from the Dead Cities region.

The Marra museum contains about 2000m² of mosaics, 1700m2 are exhibited and the rest kept in the museum storerooms. The stored mosaics are placed inside wooden boxes, separated with a layer of stereo board. The storage of the mosaics was part of a previous project that was funded through TDA-HPI in the fall of 2014. It included protecting and restoring of more than 1100m² of mosaics.

The Museum is at risk of bombardment by regime forces and has already suffered extensive damage, most recently as result of an airstrike in June 2015 when a barrel bomb hit it. The museum is also vulnerable to break in and theft/vandalism.

The goals of the Phase II Annex are to:

1. Clear the rubble and repairing/stabilizing the parts of the building, which were damaged by the June 2015 airstrike (see figs 1 and 2).
2. Repairing the parts of the roof that are leaking to prevent collapse (see fig 3, 6 and 7).
3. Installing protective doors on the main museum galleries housing the mosaics to enhance security (see figs 4 and 5).

Work Stages Completed (Goals 1 and 2):

The following work has been completed after 5 weeks from commencement of project .

Clear the rubble and repairing/stabilizing the parts of the building, which were damaged by the June 2015 airstrike (see figs 1 and 2).

The work completed includes the following stages:

1. Topographic mapping of the walls that would be partly or completely dismantled, and identifying the parts that would be completely dismantled.
2. Numbering the stones, and accurately documenting each stage by topographic mapping, photographs, and videos.
3. Building the scaffoldings needed, iron scaffoldings are preferable, taking into account the safety and sturdiness.
4. Directly marking the parts that will be dismantled while they are still on the facades.
5. Gathering the marked/numbered stones in secure area specially designated for their storage.