The Ministry of Culture and the Syria Trust for Development Celebrate the Launch of the Book” Syrian Shadow Play”

As part of the “Behind the Shadows: Tales Told to Generations” celebration, which was held at the Dar Al-Assad for Culture and Arts in Damascus, the Ministry of Culture and the Syria Trust for Development launched yesterday evening the book “Syrian Shadow Play”, which documents the cultural heritage component registered on the UNESCO lists as one of the elements of ancient arts that broke through the barriers of time and reached Syria by Silk Road to carry the Syrian identity.

The Shadow Play element, known as “Karagoz and Aywaz”, which was included by UNESCO International Committee for the Preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2018 on the Heritage List and which needs urgent preservation, is the result of a “civil and governmental” community effort to preserve the identity of a cultural component of heritage and ensure its continuity.

In a speech, the Minister of Culture in the caretaker government, Dr. Lubana Mushaweh, said: “We, Syrians, are proud of being builders of a civilization for thousands of years and of our distinctive geographical location on the Silk and Incense Road we have been enriched by the product of the civilizations of nations as we have enriched them, exchanged with them goods, knowledge, science, narratives, customs and practices so that each of us has become what he is today on the map of human civilization”.

“The Shadow Play” is one of those cultural elements that reached us through the Silk Road to melt into the Syrian identity and acquire characteristics and practices that made it a privileged Syrian intangible heritage element”, Mushaweh added, stressing that its inclusion on the lists of human heritage was a qualitative shift that obliged us to make great efforts to publicize this endangered element and raise awareness of its heritage importance, preservation and development.

For his part, the Executive Chairman of the Syria Trust for Development Shadi al-Alshi said that the production of the book came with national efforts and expertise in the hope that it would be a model to repeat with each element of the Syrian intangible cultural heritage and each archaeological site that form our identity and culture, and contributes to its preservation.

In a statement to SANA reporter, the director of the National Living Heritage Program at the Syria Trust for Development Yara Maala said that the launch of the “Shadow Play” book was the culmination of four years of efforts of the national conservation plan in order to preserve this element, which was threatened with danger،

Amal Farhat