Selma Al-Radi () (July 23, 1939 – October 7, 2010) was an
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
i
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
renowned for her twenty-year restoration of the
Amiriya Madrasa
Al-Amiriya () is a 16th-century madrasa (educational institution) located in Rada, Yemen. It is under consideration for inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. , which is under consideration as a
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
.
["Selma Al-Radi, Restored Historic Madrasa, Dies at 71" "New York Times", 14 Oct 201]
/ref>["In Memoriam: Selma Al-Radi" "Tabsir: Insight on Islam and the Middle East", 11 Oct 201]
/ref>["Selma Al-Radi 1939-2010" "Qais Al-Awqati: The Signal and the Noise"](_blank)
Her advocacy for using local labour and traditional methods has been particularly notable. Selma died of Ovarian cancer on October 7, 2010 in her home in Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
.
Education and Career
Early life
Selma Al-Radi was born in Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
, Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
, but her childhood was spent in Tehran
Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and later in New Delhi
New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...
, India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
where her father Muhammed Selim Al-Radi served the Iraqi Ambassador. It was the turmoil in India during the 1947 Partition which encouraged her to look to the past and become an archaeologist. Al-Radi had "decided early in life that I was not keen on modern things, partly because of all this turmoil and upheaval around us. The only tranquil phase for me was the past."
Education and Career
She obtained her BA at the University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
in Akkadian, Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
. Her tutor was Joan Oates
Joan Louise Oates, FBA ( Lines; 6 May 1928 – 3 February 2023) was an American-British archaeologist and academic, specialising in the Ancient Near East. From 1971 to 1995 she was a Fellow and tutor of Girton College, Cambridge, and a lecturer ...
, a noted Mesopotamian archaeologist. After graduation, she returned to Baghdad, where she began working in the National Museum of Iraq
The Iraq Museum () is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq. The Iraq Museum contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid, and Persian civilizations. It was loo ...
.
Along with her cousin Lamia Al-Gailani, they were the first women in Iraq to go on archaeological excavations as representatives of the archaeological service. One of her first assignments was to accompany the team led by David Oates, which discovered a large cache of the celebrated Nimrud Ivories
The Nimrud ivories are a large group of small carved ivory plaques and figures dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BC that were excavated from the Assyrian city of Nimrud (in modern Ninawa Governorate, Ninawa in Iraq) during the 19th and 20 ...
, many of which were restored by Al-Radi, giving her a first taste of restoration. She then obtained her master's degree in Art History and Archeology at Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
in New York in 1967 under the tutelage of Edith Porada. On her return, she continued to work in the Department of Antiquities and the Museum. After her family left Iraq to settle in Beirut
Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
, Al-Radi began teaching at the American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...
(1969–1974). She enrolled in the University of Amsterdam for her PhD degree. Her research was performed on a Bronze Age site in Cyprus, Phlamoudhi Vounari, and her thesis was published in 1983.
Restoration of Amiriya Madrasa
In 1977, Al-Radi took on the position of an adviser to the National Museum of Yemen in Sana'a for restoration and cataloguing. There, she conducted many archaeological surveys, participated in digs, energized the field of restoration of buildings especially mud brick palaces in the Hadhramawt
Hadhramaut ( ; ) is a geographic region in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula which includes the Yemeni governorates of Hadhramaut, Shabwah and Mahrah, Dhofar in southwestern Oman, and Sharurah in the Najran Province of Saudi Ara ...
. But her chef d'oeuvre was to be the restoration of the Amiriya Madrasa
Al-Amiriya () is a 16th-century madrasa (educational institution) located in Rada, Yemen. It is under consideration for inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. . Built in the 1504 and named after Sultan Amir Ibn Abid Al-Wahhab who commissioned the ornate building in southern Yemen, it was likely not used as a madrasa (school) rather, a palace with a mosque .
Beginning 1983, in collaboration with the Antiquites Department led by Qadi Ismail Al-Aqwa', she led the restoration of this building which was close to collapse. After securing support from the Dutch and Yemeni governments and a team of local craftsmen whose expertise was handed down in the same families for generations, Dr Radi insisted on only using materials and techniques the original structure had been built from - limestone and brick. Not only did these historical methods resuscitate the medieval craft of building in Yemen, it kept the cost of the restoration to around $2million. In particular, she utilised the ancient Yemeni plastering method of '' qudad'', a waterproofing cement. After laborious experimentation, they discovered the correct mixtures of volcanic ash and slaked lime. The results were published in 1995. The large cadre of masons and '' qudad'' workers became a school of restoration after the project gained international attention. Many of the workers were hired to restore old mansions in Yemen or to use the same methods to build new ones there.
Once the main structure was stabilized, she turned her attention to the adjacent mosque. The building was painted with murals in colorful designs, part of a long tradition of painted wooden and plaster ceilings in Yemen from the early medieval period. Al-Radi had documented the existence of as many as 40 of these painted mosques, a unique feature in Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both Secularity, secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Muslim world, Islamic world encompasse ...
, and Yemen was particularly rich in these structures. A project began with the Centro di Conservazione Archaeologica in Rome led by Roberto Nardi to conserve and restore the paintings. Since there was no continued tradition of painting restoration within the local craftsmen, they were trained by a team of Italian art restorers. Al-Radi herself cleaned the whitewash from the intricately carved stucco decoration using fine dental and surgical tools, an enterprise which took 15 years. She published a book following this project with emphasis on restoration of the stucco and paintings. ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' described the project as "an immense undertaking" and the madrasa as "one of the great treasures of Islamic art and architecture." Full restorations ceased in 2004 when the complex was opened to the public and used as a mosque.
Awards and Publications
In 2005 Al-Radi received the Yemen Presidential Medal of Culture. In 2007, Al-Radi and Yahya Al-Nasiri received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) is an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies in the fie ...
for their monumantal work in the restoration spanning three decades.
She also published two books on her restoration work:
* “The Amiriya in Rada: The History and Restoration of a Sixteenth-Century Madrasa in Yemen” (Oxford University, 1997; edited by Robert Hillenbrand)
* “Amiriya Madrasa: The Conservation of the Mural Paintings” (Centro di Conservazione Archeologica, 2005; with Roberto Nardi and Chiara Zizola).
Family
Al-Radi was the sister of Nuha al-Radi, the author of ''Baghdad Diaries''.[Nuha Al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries Vintage Books 1998] Al-Radi was married to Qais Al-Awqati, a Professor of Medicine and Physiology at Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. Her son Rakan Ammar Zahawi from her first marriage is an environmental scientist who is the head of the Las Cruces Biological Station
The Las Cruces Biological Station / Wilson Botanical Garden is located in the southern Puntarenas province of Costa Rica, and is the newest of the three research stations operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS). Las Cruces includ ...
in Costa Rica.
References
External links
* Caterina Borelli, , 2012, A Documentary on the renovation of the ‘ Amiryia Madrasa and Mosque in Rada
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central Lond ...
, Yemen, using the ancient waterproofing technique with ''qudad''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Radi, Selma Al-
1939 births
2010 deaths
Iraqi archaeologists
Iraqi women archaeologists
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
University of Amsterdam alumni
People from Baghdad
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
20th-century archaeologists
21st-century archaeologists
21st-century Iraqi women writers
20th-century Iraqi women writers