{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-c03aa079.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-517835be.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Researchers aiming to translate and catalogue all wall carvings of the Alhambra' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bb3cd8eafeecae12391f' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bb3cd8eafeecae12391f' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nResearchers aiming to translate and catalogue all wall carvings of the Alhambra\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eAlhmabra Palace, Granada, June 4, 20091. Wide Alhambra palace2. Wide pan Alhambra3. Mid Alhambra4. Wide tourists inside Alhambra courtyard5. Mid tourists6. Wide tilt courtyard7. Mid archway8. Close Arabic writing on wall9. Wide...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eAlhmabra Palace, Granada, June 4, 2009\u003cbr/\u003e1. Wide Alhambra palace\u003cbr/\u003e2. Wide pan Alhambra\u003cbr/\u003e3. Mid Alhambra\u003cbr/\u003e4. Wide tourists inside Alhambra courtyard\u003cbr/\u003e5. Mid tourists\u003cbr/\u003e6. Wide tilt courtyard\u003cbr/\u003e7. Mid archway\u003cbr/\u003e8. Close Arabic writing on wall\u003cbr/\u003e9. Wide researcher Juan Castilla enters courtyard\u003cbr/\u003e10. Mid Juan points at writing\u003cbr/\u003e11. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Castilla, Lead researcher:\u003cbr/\u003e\"I don't understand why such a meticulous study has not been done before, I don't understand because a monument of the importance of the Alhambra; one of Spain's and the World's most visited building, deserves an exhaustive investigation of all the scriptures. We must be aware that any type of tragic event could affect the walls of the Alhambra, events which in fact have happened in previous centuries.\"\u003cbr/\u003e12. Mid damaged wall\u003cbr/\u003e13. Mid wall\u003cbr/\u003e14. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Castilla, Lead researcher:\u003cbr/\u003e\"We are here in the Mexuar room, which has always been considered one of the more administrative areas within the Alhambra. This room was later transformed in Christian times into a chapel but there is still a fragment of plaster that runs around the room. This contains expressions that are repeated rather like our alphabet. The first phrase can be translated \"The power is of God\", the second is \"The glory is of God\" and the third element is \"The kingdom is of God\".\"\u003cbr/\u003e15. Wide tourists walking through courtyard\u003cbr/\u003e16. Wide tilt up pond\u003cbr/\u003e17. Mid tourists kissing\u003cbr/\u003e18. SOUNDBITE (English) Maheen Zaman, Tourist:\u003cbr/\u003e\"Much of it is poetry, panegyric poetry which I was looking at, I was trying to read, and if I could really understand what was the captions underneath exactly what these things are, that would add a lot of meaning to the structure, the architectural structure. Which otherwise would be lost as just cement blocks that are pretty. But the actual meaning of what they're intended to be by the poems which are part of the architecture, that would be quite beneficial.\"\u003cbr/\u003e19. Mid courtyard\u003cbr/\u003e20. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Castilla, Lead researcher:\u003cbr/\u003e\"Not all the Alhambra is covered in poetry but it is justified that people think that it is. We have to remember that the poetic scriptures are perhaps aesthetically the most attractive - not only to specialists but also to casual observers. This has meant that the specialists have placed special interest in the study of the poetical scriptures and this has given the impression that the Alhambra is full of poetry.\"\u003cbr/\u003e21. Wide tilt Patio of the Lions\u003cbr/\u003e22. SOUNDBITE (English) Aaisha Shaikh, Tourist:\u003cbr/\u003e\"I think giving a lot of meaning to the text whether they are muslim or any other language helps us understand what is going on behind the architecture. Because right now it is just scripture, it's just pieces of art and to know the meaning behind it would add an additional layer upon that.\"\u003cbr/\u003e23. Wide tourists on tower\u003cbr/\u003e24. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Maria del Mar Villafranca, Director Alhambra Trust:\u003cbr/\u003e\"The voice of the Alhambra has been made to be listened to. I think that we must listen as to what these scriptures have to say because they help us understand the monument but it also projects us to back into those times. Also by knowing what they say in our language moves it forward to our time, to the present. I think we have also done this to educate future generations. I think it is an action that wins points in all different ways.\"\u003cbr/\u003e25. Wide pan Alhambra\u003cbr/\u003eA masterwork of Muslim architecture, the Alhambra is Spain's single most visited tourist site, with 2.2 million people a year.\u003cbr/\u003eResearchers are now undertaking a mammoth task.\u003cbr/\u003eThey are aiming to translate and catalogue every single carving from the palace's walls.\u003cbr/\u003eFrom its every nook and cranny, the Alhambra quietly speaks. \u003cbr/\u003eWalls, columns, fountains and other pieces of Europe's crown jewel of Muslim architecture boast ornate Arabic inscriptions that even native speakers might struggle to decipher.\u003cbr/\u003eThis month, Spanish researchers unveiled the first fruit of a huge project to translate and catalogue every last carving, an estimated 10,000 from individual words to poems to verses from the Quran. \u003cbr/\u003eThe goal is to render a seemingly impenetrable slice of medieval history readily accessible with the click of a mouse.\u003cbr/\u003e\"I don't understand why such a meticulous study has not been done before\", says lead researcher Juan Castilla.\u003cbr/\u003eThe dream of understanding and recording the inscriptions at the Moorish citadel goes back to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. \u003cbr/\u003eTheir forces captured Granada in 1492, expelled the sultans who lived in scented splendour at the 14th-century palace complex and ended nearly 800 years of Muslim rule in much of Spain.\u003cbr/\u003eThe Spanish royal court quickly hired translators to tackle the inscriptions at the Alhambra and on other buildings throughout this handsome, whitewashed city in southern Spain. \u003cbr/\u003eBut records of that effort were lost over time, and later ones addressed only certain categories of inscription, a far cry from the exhaustive study that Castilla and two other Arabic language specialists have been conducting since 2002.\u003cbr/\u003eToday some inscriptions are illegible because of routine decay. And if a natural disaster like an earthquake were to strike the losses would be irreplaceable.\u003cbr/\u003eCastilla says that we must be aware that any type of tragic event could affect the walls of the Alhambra.\u003cbr/\u003eDuring a three-hour tour of the Alhambra, he pointed out inscriptions in every conceivable corner of the complex, running from floor to ceiling and back down again, on or atop columns, or around the rims of fountains. \u003cbr/\u003eSome carvings are so intricate that to an untrained eye they look like elaborate drawings.\u003cbr/\u003eThrough the centuries, the popular belief was that most of the writings were verses from the Quran or poetry. \u003cbr/\u003eBut on the basis of the Alhambra building that has been studied so far, the Comares Palace, those amount to less than 10 percent of the total.\u003cbr/\u003eOne of the reasons for so much inscription was that the Alhambra's sultans wanted to leave a record of their presence.\u003cbr/\u003eIn the Mexuar room Castilla points out phrases on the walls reading \"The power is of God\", \"The glory is of God\" and \"The kingdom is of God\".\"\u003cbr/\u003eSuch writings are a way of professing faith in God and of simply decorating the place: Islam discourages any kind of representational art.\u003cbr/\u003eOther inscriptions are single words like \"happiness\" or \"blessing\" with the idea that they are to invoke such things from God for the room where they are carved or for the ruling sultan himself.\u003cbr/\u003eCastilla, who works for the Spanish National Research Council and learned Arabic while living in Iraq and Egypt, said that understanding the writing is extremely hard even for the average native Arabic speaker, in part because it sometimes employs an archaic script called kufic.\u003cbr/\u003eMaheen Zaman, a tourist visiting the Alhambra, says that if he could understand what the captions say, it would add a lot of meaning to the architectural structure, which otherwise would be lost as just cement blocks that are pretty. \u003cbr/\u003eAnother tourist Aaisha Shaikh agrees \"I think giving a lot of meaning to the text whether they are muslim or any other language helps us understand what is going on behind the architecture. Because right now it is just scripture, it's just pieces of art and to know the meaning behind it would add an additional layer upon that.\"\u003cbr/\u003eDirector of the Alhambra Trust Maria del Mar Villafranca, says that she thinks they have done the research to educate future generations.\u003cbr/\u003eFor now, about a third of the inscriptions are available on an interactive CD that provides Spanish-language translations and a wealth of other information, such as their source. \u003cbr/\u003eOnce the project is completed in 2011, the idea is to download a sample of the material onto the Internet.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='action-container flex justify-between'\u003e\n\u003cbutton aria-expanded='false' aria-label='Read more description' class='rp-full-description' type='button'\u003e\n\u003ci class='fai fa-solid fa-align-left'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cspan id='read_more'\u003eRead More\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/button\u003e\n\u003cdiv 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