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The website of the project named "Documentation and Promotion of the Syriac Intangible Heritage in Mardin Region" is now online.
Funded by the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP), the project's main purpose is safeguarding the intangible values through the documentation and dissemination of the information on the cultural practices of the Syriac community in the Mardin region and assessing the risks exposed to the tangible heritage of the same community.
The project presents a model case that intangible heritage is conceived as integral to the tangible heritage and the preservation of it requires a strategy developed/accepted by the successors of that heritage.
The website explains the main purpose of the project as follows:
'Our main goal is to sustain this diversity'
"As the main goal of the project, taking initiative for the safeguarding of the intangible Syriac heritage is an urgent need not only for the community itself, but also for the whole region.
"The region, which is called Turabdin in Syriac tradition, has housed a society with a multilingual, multiethnic, multicultural, and multi-religious character. The communities of this society included Muslims, Christians, and Ezidis; and the Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, and Syriac languages have been contemporarily spoken throughout the history.
"Our main goal was to sustain this diverse character. In order to do that we aimed to document and promote the Syriac community's cultural practices (including their language), extending the networks of the Syriac activists, NGOs, and initiatives, supporting and promoting their activities, and preparing the risk assessment reports for the architectural and urban heritage through the outputs of the project."
Publications within the scope of the project regarding the intangible heritage can also be reached on the website. (AÖ/SD)
