The Permanent Committee for Islamic and Coptic Monuments approved a project to restore the Al-Sharaibi bathhouse in the area of Al-Azhar and Al-Ghouri area, after the suggestion was made by the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation.
Director General of the Historic Cairo Antiquities Department, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, said in a statement on behalf of the antiquities ministry on Thursday that the restoration work will be conducted under the full supervision of the Ministry of Antiquities and will be fully-funded by a grant from Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development in Netherlands.
He added that the project will be carried out in two stages: the first phase involves strengthening the structure for the bathroom from inside and removing waste from the site. The second phase will see the architectural restoration of the bathhouse.
Sharaibi bathhouse was built by the wealthy Moroccan merchant Mohammed Dada Al-Sharaibi. The 19th century Egyptian education minister Ali Pasha Mubarak said the bathhouse was one of the old baths established by Sultan al-Ghouri after 1501, and it had undergone several renovations in the Ottoman era.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
