Qasr Al Hosn festival to take visitors on a trip through history

Emiratis perform a traditional dance at the Qasr Al Hosn Festival in Abu Dhabi last year. Sammy Dallal / The National

ABU DHABI // Visitors to this year’s Qasr Al Hosn Festival will get to tour the wings of the former palace and take part in cultural workshops.

The national consultative council chamber, where historical decisions for Abu Dhabi were made in the early days of the FNC, will be opened to the public.

The festival, from February 11 to 21, will also offer arts and heritage workshops.

“The 2015 programme was created to offer visitors a holistic cultural experience, and narrate stories in a compelling, educational, yet engaging manner,” said Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon, chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority.

The festival area has been expanded and a stage has been erected for live theatre, music and poetry nights.

The event also aims to highlight modern Emirati heritage by reopening the cultural foundation building to “bring back some memories”.

Meanwhile, coffee cups from Japan and China, pottery, glass and paintings are among the archaeological artefacts being unearthed by a team of historians, architects and conservators.

They are carrying out restoration and conservation procedures to remove parts of the thick, white gypsum and cement plaster that was applied to the walls of the fort in the 1980s. “We’ve already removed quite a lot of the white rendering and it’s already coming away, so it’s difficult to repair,” said Peter Sheehan, head of historical building and landscape at Qasr Al Hosn.

“We will replaster, but the question is: ‘Is there is another cement layer?’ If there is, then one of the main debates will be what to do with it because moving it might have an effect on the building.”

Mr Sheehan said some of the artefacts were probably from redeposited layers, items that had been excavated and put back in the 1980s.

“We are trying to work through layers that were undisturbed,” he said.

“Things broken along the way were pushed into the sand.”

The artefacts will be stored and displayed in the museum at Qasr Al Hosn.

Paintings have also been found in the family wing of the palace.

“There are some very unique brass reliefs that show paintings of peacocks,” said Mark Kyffin, head of architecture at Qasr Al Hosn.

It was thought that the paintings were reconstructions of original artworks from the 1980s because Islamic artworks during that period did not include paintings of living things

After examinations of the artworks, however, “they could be originals from the 1940s, so we are changing our thinking”, said Mr Kyffin.

When the construction work on Qasr Al Hosn is completed, “the evolution of the building will be showcased”.

The inner fort will become an exhibition gallery about Abu Dhabi’s assets and the Royal family. “The palace area will be a living memorial because of the original building, the coral and seastone,” said Mr Kyffin.