The second phase of the restoration of the facade of ancient Palmyra Theater launched

The General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, in cooperation with the Russian Volunteer Expeditionary Corps, has begun the second phase of the project to restore the façade of the ancient Palmyra Theater, which was destroyed as a result of attacks by the terrorist organization “ISIS” before its defeat from the region.

This stage consists of managing the rubble, sorting it systematically, documenting all the stone pieces using three-dimensional imaging, and identifying the intact stones that can be used in the third stage, which is rebuilding the destroyed parts of the facade according to the highest international standards for such cases.

Assistant Director General of Antiquities and Museums, Dr. Humam Saad, stated that the second stage in the restoration and rehabilitation of the façade of the Archaeological Theater of Palmyra includes sorting the rubble of the collapsed stones, which includes documenting the current status of the stones, their layers, and their numbering, and making a form for each room separately after using three-dimensional photography. Then, conduct the necessary studies and plans to determine the number of complete, incomplete, and damaged stones. He explained that assistance would be made to fill the shortfall resulting from the Palmyra stone quarries, and then a virtual model of the theater façade would be made in order to prepare for the final stage of the restoration work, and to completely restore the theatre’s façade.

The Director of Engineering at the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, Engineer Ayman Hamouk, explained in a similar statement that this stage will carefully focus on studying the rubble of the collapsed stone pieces, especially since in the 1980s, reinforced concrete was used in the restoration work of the theater facade to complete some of the missing elements, while now it will be replaced with basic stone pieces to fill the shortage resulting from the Palmyra quarries near the city, from which the city’s archaeological sites were built in the second century AD, stressing that the second phase of restoration work on the theater’s facade will not take more than one month.

For his part, the Russian archaeologist Basio Yurlenv explained that the Russian side is participating with the Syrian side in restoring the facade of the theater as it was previously, and this is very important not only for Syrian culture, but also for global culture, stressing that what the terrorist organization “ISIS” has done by attacking archaeological monuments is the destruction of civilization and an attack on human culture.