 My name is Hassan Hakimian. I'm director of the London Middle East Institute, one of the sponsors of the wonderful exhibition upstairs, that I will tell you a little bit about in a moment and also the host to tonight's lecture. Let me start by thanking you all for your interest and turning up on a fairly cold January night, but I'm sure this lecture would be anything but cold. And by the end of it, the intellectual temperature will rise, making it very worthwhile gathering. It's an honour and pleasure to host Princess Wajdan Al-Hashmi back to Sohas. She's a very known intellectual, academic, art historian and diplomat. I will do a proper introduction in a moment, but let me just say very briefly about the exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, which maybe some of you have already had the chance to see. This exhibition of traditional embroidered textiles from the lands of the Indus, Afghanistan, the Near East, and Central Asia was curated by Mrs. Marianne Bukhari. Where are you sitting, Marianne? There. I think you should stand up so everybody sees you. Marianne has put in a tremendous amount of effort to make sure that this exhibition happens. It's not the first exhibition she has held at the Brunei Gallery, but this is of course the latest. And it opened last week on Friday to be precise, and it will be open for another couple of months, so those of you who haven't seen it, I hope you will have an opportunity to see this exhibition, which is an extraordinary collection of traditionally embroidered textiles along the Silk Road. And that covers an enormous geographical expense, as we know. There are hand-woven articles. They record the colors of natural dyes, stitches, patterns, motifs, and the trade of woven cotton, wool and silk along this ancient trade route, and of course they embody history, culture, and the story of women who have woven these. So there are several layers of narratives and stories behind the objects that are, by the way, full of absolutely brilliant and vibrant colors. If you haven't seen, a feast of colors is expecting you at the gallery. It brings together several collections to display the high level of abstraction and sophistication with which these pieces were made. And Marianne narrates a story of the communities that embroidered people's history of the Silk Road. Accompanying the exhibition, we are very pleased to have a series of eight lectures. I'm sure you've seen the program. And this is the inaugural lecture, a very special lecture that kicks off the series tonight. So let me now turn to our eminent speaker, her royal highness, Princess Widjdan Bent Awaz al-Hashimi. She's known to many of you here, and as the cliche introduction says, knows no introduction, but let me at least try a little bit. Princess Widjdan is an accomplished and internationally renowned art historian, academic, and diplomat. She earned her PhD in Suas in Islamic Art and Archaeology in 1993. I'm very pleased to say. As you know, this is the Suas Centenary, so it's a very special year for us. And every opportunity to welcome back our eminent alumni is a great pleasure for us. In 2010, Suas offered Princess Widjdan an honorary fellowship. For many years, she has been an ambassador for Islamic Art in Jordan and throughout the Arab world. Princess Widjdan shares with Suas a commitment to the study, preservation, and exhibition of Islamic Art. An art historian and curator herself, she established Jordan's Royal Society of Fine Arts in 1979, which in turn led to the foundation of the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. In 2001, she founded and became dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Jordan. She is the curator of numerous exhibitions inside and outside Jordan. Princess Widjdan has written nine books on traditional and contemporary Islamic art in Arabic and in English, and has contributed to or edited several others. She has been a visiting professor at several universities in Europe, in the United States, and the Middle East, and has published numerous papers in academic journals. As I mentioned before, she is herself an artist with work in museums, including the British Museum here in London, and Ashmolean Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in the USA, and the National Gallery in Islamabad. Princess Widjdan is an accomplished diplomat. In 1962, she became the first woman to enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jordan. She was also the first woman delegate to represent Jordan at the United Nations meetings and the General Assembly. For five years between 2006 and 2011, she was her country's ambassador to Italy. She was the first to write the history of modern and contemporary Islamic art, and has over 19 publications that I mentioned. At present, she continues painting, working in glass and writing. It's such a special pleasure to have you with us, Princess Widjdan, and especially to inaugurate the series lecture in honour of the exhibition at the Brunei Gallery. She will speak for about 35 minutes, 40 minutes, and then there will be an opportunity to give or take a little bit, a few minutes. I'm going to, with your permission, actually join the audience because I want to listen and learn. This is not my subject area. Those of you who know me, you know, I'm an economist. Here in Suas, we are privileged. We interact with other disciplines freely at will, and that's one of the best things that can happen in a university environment. So I want to learn. I'll be sitting there and watching and listening, and without further ado, let me welcome Princess Widjdan to the podium and please join me in showing appreciation for her. Thank you very much, Dr. Hassaniyan. I thank Suas and I thank the doctor for inviting me, giving me this opportunity to talk. I love to talk like all teachers, and I hope I will be able to answer some of the questions after I show the exhibition and the collection is a stupendous collection, and I really recommend everybody to go and see it at one point. I'm coming back tomorrow or the day after to see it quietly. Since the dawn of his life on Earth, man has been coming up with various artistic expressions. It is the outcome of a natural instinct to want to add beauty to life through creativity. Such an impulse has inspired humans throughout history to express themselves by different means, of which embroidery is but one. The main advantages of this craft or art is its flexibility and mobility that even nomads can practice it while changing their settlement and moving from one locale to another. Among the oldest embroidered pieces in the world is the collection of embroideries found in Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt. He reigned from about 1333 to 1323, very short period BCE in Egypt, which make up a firm base to the study of Middle Eastern embroidery. So far no evidence has survived from the first millennium, despite a very small number of embroidered textiles that has been recorded from first millennium the sites of Masada and Qumran in Palestine. Among the objects of ritual and household use, among the discovered at the site were a number of textiles mostly made of linen or wool, while the decoration was woven into the cloth using various weave types, as you can see around the piece. Only one small object had a simple form of embroidery, this one. In the Levant, the oldest embroidered pieces found are the ones discovered in Lebanon in Ansel Hadath located in Qadisha Valley. The discovery goes back to 1283, the Middle Ages, consists of eight bodies that naturally became mummified due to the lack of oxygen, humidity, insects and organic organism. One of the bodies belongs to a three to four months old female child wearing three layers of cloth. The outer garment is decorated with cross stitch embroidery in brown and red thread. Cross stitch is the oldest form of embroidery and can be found all over the world, especially in Asia, Eastern Europe as well as continental Europe. What is remarkable here is not only the embroidered cross stitch in red silk floss on the outer garment, but the cut of the dress itself and the placing of the embroidery on the chest and sleeves, which is no different from today's Jordanian, Syrian and Palestinian peasant dresses. This is the one pound in Lebanon, the child's dress. And here you see the peasant dresses in the three countries I just mentioned. The Byzantine Empire, it's the same. Even the sleeves, not all the sleeves have those extensions, but even the sleeves, the cut of the dress itself and the placing of the embroidery hasn't changed much since. In what is remarkable here, as I said, the embroidered cross stitch, it is the cut. The Byzantine Empire with its capital Constantinople was predominantly Greek speaking. Its existence lasted a thousand years or so and controlled much of Asia Minor, East and South Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, comprising external and internal groups including the Arabs, Persians and Turks, among others. Throughout its history, Constantinople was known for its lavishness, extravagance and richness using its church and secular embroidery in gold, silver and precious and semi-precious stones and pearls, worked on a silk ground. When the Ottomans came to power after the Byzantines, they continued the production of embroidered textiles that became a feature throughout the Mediterranean. One of the most effective impacts on the embroidery in the Arab world is that of Ottoman techniques and designs. From the late 15th to the late 19th centuries, Istanbul was the political and cultural center for much of the Arab world. Its dress traditions spread across the empire, influencing many of the local clothing traditions. This is a Turkish embroidery with gold threads and this as well and the motifs are very Ottoman. What came down to Syria, Jordan and Palestine was mainly metal threads, embroidery with colored silk floss. For example, new gold and silver metallic thread was produced in Aleppo and Homs in Syria for Bethlehem embroidered dresses. Later, it was imported from France and later from Japan. Now, either Korea or Japan, they get it because it's much cheaper. The influence of metallic thread reached Bedouin clothes and we see it among the tribes of Jordan. By the end of the 19th century, this form of embroidery could be found throughout the Ottoman Empire, especially in the civilian and military uniforms worn by high officials. Embroidery has been an artistic expression throughout the Arab world, including Jordan, Syria and Palestine. Since early medieval period, it was normal for respectable women, especially widows, to teach young ladies at home embroidery as a form of art that could be useful for the household or for the dowry of daughters and other female relations. The quality achieved in those pieces mirrored the girl's family and social status, patience, obedience and, in general, her potential for making a good marriage. The production of embroidery at home was socially important. It provided supervised entertainment and an escape from a domestic situation in a society where girls were hardly allowed to leave the family home, nor were they very much involved in household duties because of the large number of servants. The patterns that were developed carried certain meanings and signs. They were like stamps that indicated a certain area where from the wearer came, be it a town or a village, a family, a tribe, social and marital status of the wearer, religion, etc. Those patterns were characteristics that explained the identity of the woman wearing the garment. Meanwhile, the teachers of embroidery were mostly widows or ladies from poor families who needed the extra income. At the same time, similar set of conditions was also present in Europe with regard to the teaching of embroidery to society young ladies, especially in France and Italy, I suppose. From the mid-19th century onwards, many girls learned western style embroidery in machinery and convent schools. Later, local schools took up this art and taught it instead of lessons in drawing and painting. The reason behind this was that the absence or lack of trained art teachers who were almost non-existent until later in the second half of the 20th century. Even then, only private schools were able to employ artists to teach art. I remember I went to a non-school, Sisters of Nazareth in Oman, and we used to take embroidery instead of art lessons, and I hated to do it. So I used to take it home, give it to my mother, and she would embroider those silly little table covers or cushions, and I would take the first prize in school. In Jordan, Palestine and Syria, the indigenous traditional society is divided into three stratums, nomadic Bedouins living in the desert and on its fringe, settled peasants living in a village and the countryside and urban city dwellers, including the higher echelon of society, the aristocracy. Each of these had its own customs according to its way of life, environment and needs. By looking at an Arab woman from the Levant wearing traditional dress, one could tell the region, the village and area where the lady came from, and in some cases, which tribe she belonged to, her social standing, her financial status, even her religion. Two ideas are often reflected in the ornamentation of women's dresses. They are protection against the evil eye and fertility. The choice of color and design is also affected by what is locally regarded as suitable for different ages, and the marital status of the wearer. Baby's clothes, for example, should carry a protection against the evil eye in all its forms. The clothes for girls of marriageable age are usually different from those of a married woman or a widow. The color of the embroidery can define the status of the wearer. A married woman would wear a dress with a lot of red and blue embroidery to indicate her sexual maturity and marital status. Meanwhile, a widow's dress should have a minimum of embroidery in either blue or blue with a little red. Levantine embroidery patterns are divided into two kinds, figurative and geometric designs. Figurative patterns include human beings, animals, plants, trees and various other objects, such as combs or the moon. Meanwhile, geometric designs range from the very simple built around bands of horizontal S shapes known as leeches or snakes to complex intricate patterns that require a sophisticated understanding of mathematics in order to understand how they are composed. In the exhibition today upstairs, I saw the geometric patterns there and they really need to be analyzed very carefully. You would think a genius in mathematics had created those figures. Men's clothes are less elaborate and carried less decorative elements because virility for an Arab male is translated into less is more. In general, a man is not given to frivolous colors and the embroidery or to patterns that will reveal his identity to strangers. This robe, this garment is from Syria. In Jordan, they are very Calvinist in their clothes. They are very just white, long floor length shirts. That's all you can see they can wear. Traditional Arabs men's costumes are quite similar throughout the Levant. The basic attire consists of a long shirt, gumbaz, this. While amongst bedwinds it is a colorless long shirt that reaches the ankles, thawb, baggy long shorts or trousers, sarwal, a belt, hizam, a cloak, abaya that is the best gorge of a man's wealth and a head cover. Umama, laffa, hatta or kafia folded into a triangle and held in place on the head with a circular cord called agal. In the winter the bedwind wears a farwa which is a full length cloak lined with a lamp's fleece. Jordan enjoys a unique geographic position as part of Greater Syria. Along millennia old routes that connected Mesopotamia with the Mediterranean and Turkey and Syria proper with the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. It was a principle staging post along the pilgrim routes that each year brought Muslims from all over the Islamic world to the holy city of Mecca. Equally for centuries Orthodox Christian pilgrims from a wide range of countries including Egypt, Greece, Syria and Greater Russia came to bathe in the river Jordan. Meanwhile in the 19th century Christian missionary groups came from Europe and North America to baptize members of their communities in the river Jordan. Bringing with them their own forms of clothing and decorative techniques including embroidery. Some stage on in Jordan and Palestine hence embroidery from both countries shows the constant mixture of local and foreign impacts. Unlike that of its neighbors Jordanian embroidery took second place to the elaborate and attractive woven textiles traditionally produced by Jordanian Bedouins. They include kilims, tent furnishings, saddlebags and clothing such as men's abayas and short jackets for both sexes. Here these are saddlebags, hangings, tent hangings and kilims. You see the complicated designs they carry. This is the abaya, the very rough wool coat for men and women as well. Here are women working on their knolls and this is for the camels and horses. An example of Jordanian embroidered dresses comes mostly from karak and salt. These are some patterns that Jordanian patterns embroidered on the clothes. Here mostly geometric but with cross-stage whatever you do even the very natural ones they look geometric somehow. This is a very interesting dress it's called Sob'ab. It is twice. It's worn in karaks and salts and the Jordan Valley in Ghur where there are two types of dresses, the ankle short length and the extra long dress, Sob'ab. The short dresses are embroidered around the neck openings, sleeve cuffs and hem. The long dresses are the same but without the decoration on the cuffs. Both dresses are typified by the use of cross stitch. Such typical designs from the second half of the 20th century show stylized flowers mostly roses and geometric patterns. Actually Sob'ab is a unique dress within the Arab world. It is nearly twice the height of most women who wear this style and dress. It was made of light blue cotton material but by the 1920s those dresses were more often made of black cotton, duvet, black satin, malas or a black crepe, a busafarti. And they came in two basic forms, one for daily use either in plain or with minimal decoration. A second one embroidered for festivals and special occasions. One of the stories associated with the dress is that during Ottoman rule as women were seldom or rather never searched by men they wore Sob'ab in order to hide small items of value such as money and jewelry from the local tax collectors. Hence the folds of the dress would supply ample capacity for concealment. On a more practical level the large folding of the dress had a functional value as the air was trapped between the folds of cloth that was cooler than the surrounding air. It is also possible that this dress had more to do with pretension than comfort as the large folding and prolonged sleeves were a visible demonstration of how much material had been used. However by the beginning of the 21st century Sob'ab was no longer worn by nomadic women from the Ghor, Rift Valley, the cities of Salt and Karak on daily basis probably because of its high cost and unpractical usage. The tribal system still exists in Jordan, every Jordanian of East Bank origin and many of the Palestinian origin who are technically Arab as opposed to Circassians and either Muslim or Orthodox Christians belong to a tribe. Among the Bedouin hierarchy there are several tribes who fall at the top of the desert social pyramid such as Zaiduan, Bani Sakhar, Bani Hassan and the Abbadis among others. They are the desert aristocracy hence the ladies clothes are richly embroidered in coloured silk thread on black silk fabric cut through and they are jewelry made of agate or rich Ottoman metal and coral as well as silver and gold. The influence of rich Ottoman metal embroidery is apparent on the ladies jackets meanwhile there is no distinction in men's clothes as they are all similar. The Abaya could have gold thread embroidery along the collar and down the front that gives its owner a distinctive touch but here you can see the gold influence the Ottoman gold thread embroidery how it has reached even in places in the desert among Bedouin women. This is the Abaya, the men's Abaya, the collar is the only show of influence if we can call it that by having it large or narrower than usual. In Syria during the medieval period Syria was famous for the production of Tiras. Tiras textiles I'm not going to go into I'm sure you know a bit about it into details but it has an embroidered band that used to be put on the upper arm by men and women and there are two theories one theory that Tiras was originated in early Byzantium and when the Umayyads came they took it up and continued the tradition and another theory that it was originated in Persia and then from Persia it went to Iraq and the Abbasids spread it all over Egypt and Syria and Lebanon all over the place. Now this is a drawing where the Tiras would be put on the upper side of the arm. Besides embroidery other small items are sewn to the Bedouin and peasant dress such as spangles made of small length of wire flattened with a hammer, sequins that are similar to a spangle and made of glass plastic, recently plastic and so forth. Small glass beads, paillettes made of glass, metal, plastic shells, coins, amulets which are cherished for their amuletic values, chains, discs, colored glass beads and coins which used to be gold and silver but at present are often gold and silver colored discs. I'll show you that it's not gold and silver it's just little metallicness with embroidered two sides and those tassels which are so cumbersome. As with many parts of the Arab world Syrian embroidery can be divided into three basic groups the urban associated with large cities such as the Baskas Aleppo, Homs, Halab the village embroidery linked with peasant communities and the semi-nomadic Bedouin groups because in Syria like in Jordan there are Bedouins who still wear their own costumes. Much of the Syrian metal thread embroidery as well as machine embroidery was executed by men in ateliers of variable sizes. During the 19th century the embroidery associated with Damascus and other major urban centers was heavily influenced by the Ottoman. Syria is the country mostly influenced by Turkish culture among the three countries and here we see the Ottoman style with this gold metal thread and rich designs for both women and men's clothes as well as objects such as covers, curtains, tablecloths and bags, mirror bags, bath towers and silk craps of large silk squares decorated with elaborate gold and silver thread embroidery especially used by a bride in the Hamam in the bath house. By the beginning of the 20th century more and more Syrian men and women switched to European styles that excluded the Ottoman forms of gold thread embroidery associated with Damascus and other urban centers such as Aleppo and Hamam. Hence this type of embroidery on clothes diminished and only continued on household items today. By the second half of the 20th century ready dyed artificial silks of various qualities came from Europe and Asia as well as synthetic threads and acrylic yarn. Thus non-western local crafts suffered drastically from competition with mass produced goods. Palestine the earliest forms of holy land embroidered cross stitch can be traced to about 11th century AD to Saint Francis who tended wounded Christian and Muslim soldiers in the holy land as is supposed to have brought a treasure of ancient religious symbols to Assisi resulting in the Assisi embroidery of stylized outline representing animals, birds and geometric shapes dated from the 13th and 14th centuries and executed by nuns. 15th to 17th centuries witnessed the execution of elaborate biblical scenes, animals, plants and mythological motifs. Embroidery was considered a church art during the Italian Renaissance. Cross stitch is the main stitch employed in Palestinian embroidery which is the richest both in motif, intensity and color among Deventine costumes. This is Syria again, we're still in Syria with the colors on black silk. This is also Syria, you see the Christian Syrians with the cross on top of the tree. This is Palestinian, very rich embroidery much different from the Jordanian one. And even the Syrian, the cross stitch is the main stitch employed in Palestinian embroidery. There are others but mainly cross stitch which is the richest both in motif, intensity and color among Deventine costumes. It has its early origins in Chinese craftsmanship that is the cross stitch moving from there to India then to Egypt then to Greece or Rome and then to the Levant. Traditional Palestinian folk embroidery is an art passed down from one generation to the next. The major foreign influences on embroidery after the Byzantines and Ottomans though less than in Syria which has been discussed earlier were the Germans, French, British, Italians, Americans who wielded some influence through mission schools in the cities or through settlers presenting services to villagers. Some settled in self-styled colonies in towns around biblical sites while leaving their mark on the form of religious buildings, charitable organizations and so on while making their contribution to embroidery as well. The rural areas, in rural areas iconography usually mirrors local scenes hence the embroiderers choose items from their daily life such as palm trees, cypress, heads of corn, pigeons, combs, even snakes. The meaning of the message transmitted by the motif might vary from one region to another. Urban areas tend to have more general meanings as the embroidery is produced for a wider range of clientele, private and public. Among the early foreign influences in Palestine where the hand embroidered, this is again a dress in Palestinian peasant dress. So is this, photography is not very good here. You see it is, it's really full of figures. Among the early foreign influences in Palestine where the hand embroidered Chinese silk shoals, very strange. Known as Chinese shoals, Canton Shoals or Spanish Shoals in the Hispanic world, Mantones de Manila because they used to be shipped in the Manila galleons in the Philippines. They were hand embroidered silk shoals made in southern China and became fashionable from 1830s to the 40s. Probably to provide an inexpensive substitute to Kashmir Shoals whose prices were increasing or possibly as a sophisticated urban version of peasant shoals that were part of the folk costume in many regions. The entanglement of politics with embroidery is an old trend in Palestinian fashion but not that old. A Palestinian design named the 10th of the Pasha, Chiamil Pasha, is named after the Ottomans while the officers Pip, Nishan el-Dabat probably goes back to the time of the British mandate. Such designs as the Barlev line and Sadat and Begin refer to the 1967 ceasefire line and the two leaders of Egypt and Israel. Although in 1948, the year of the first Arab-Israeli war, 40% of Palestinians lived in cities, yet the idealization of what peasants stood for, the attachment to the land, the essential to Palestinian existence was an intrinsic part that defined their continued struggle to regain their country. Eventually, throughout the years of Israeli occupation, the national dress of a Palestinian woman came to signify a new role that of a sacred mother who by bearing children they will grow up to be fighters and liberate the land. Thus, she is performing a national duty and turning motherhood into a national obligation. So what do mothers wear? They transform their national costume into a patriotic weapon for which new symbols are created through embroidery. One of the most significant, this is the Chinese shawl. Sorry, you can see the silk Chinese shawls that you just mentioned. This is a new embroidered motif. One of the most significant symbols is the Palestinian flag and its colors. The dome of the rock and the Aqsa Mosque are two important symbols, as well as the pigeon carrying an olive branch and a gun. Hence Palestinian national identity. Here you see the map of Palestine and the flag of Palestine on a peasant dress, which is not really a city dress, one can say. It is a change that reflects the dynamics of continued and tiring exile and the maturing of new generations in the diaspora. In 1987, the first intifada began and women's role on the front line was important. The women of Qalqalandia camp and the villages of Hebron in the west bank began to make intifada dresses. When the Israelis confiscated the Palestinian flags from the women protesting against the occupation and forbid its artistic representation, the women began to embroider the traditional Cyprus theme motif in the colors of their flag. The silhouette of the map of Palestine in endless repetition as well as a white dove in flight with a rifle between its claws. The novel phenomena of transforming Palestinian women's embroidered garments into a national symbol gave an innovative breath and depth to a people's cause. Through embroidery, they transformed the identity of a simple domestic peasant dress into a canvas depicting a nation's cause and its struggle for liberation. This in itself is a unique and unprecedented occurrence on the international scene. So here we see the flag and the Aqsa Mosque and the outline of the map of Palestine with the colors of the flag. And this is a boy with sling shots. This is how they were showing the resistance to occupation. Teenagers were using sling shots and a boy shooting his slingshot at the occupiers and the colors of the Palestinian flag. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that fascinating talk. I'm sure there are some questions you'd like to ask. We have time for a few questions from the floor. So who would like to... could you repeat that louder please? Yes. Ah, the camel. Cowry shells? The shells. The shells, ah, cowry shells, yes. Yes, yes. These same shells they used on clothes as well. No, they're purely decorative. Purely decorative. Good luck maybe because anything comes out of the sea is supposed to be good luck, isn't it? Yes, please. Can you speak up please? Thank you. Sea of Galilee. Sea of Galilee. I'm hard of hearing. I'm sorry. What's the question? Elaborate a little bit about the creativity around the Sea of Galilee. Is that... yeah. Can you elaborate a little bit more about the... Around the Sea of Galilee? I don't understand the question. Yeah, you have to speak up please. Can you come here please? Because we're both... There is a microphone there. Just wait. The microphone is coming to you. I think in the very beginning you mentioned around the River Jordan there had been some signs of creativity and had a bit of difficulties in understanding what you meant. What about around the Sea of Galilee? Had there been any signs of creativity? And how did it originate? And you could please put some emphasis on this creativity. Thank you. Did you get that? No. Around the Sea of Galilee, any... Can you elaborate on any signs of creativity? You mentioned the River Jordan, but what about the area around the Sea of Galilee? Well, I'm afraid I don't know. I think all over Palestine and Jordan and Syria, it's the same. The embroideries and the Sea of Galilee is the same. I don't know what sort of activities you want to know about, but people answered that they're craving for creativity through embroidery. It is a very old art and a very old craft that they have inherited. There's nothing in particular different there from the rest of Palestine. Question here? Yeah. Go ahead, please. Entertain themselves and make themselves into good perspective wives and all the rest of it. Young girls don't really learn this so much anymore. No. So is there a danger that this art is going to be lost or are shopkeepers and artisans going to preserve it, and what can we do? There is a big danger of losing this craft and art, I would call it. And then also, like the war in Syria, now, where are the embroideries? Who's going to teach the young girls? I'm not knowledgeable about Iraq, but I'm sure it's the same situation. All over. Because in Palestine, the war was not as destructive as it is in Syria and Iraq now, or in Yemen. Yemen, they have amazing embroidery. What will happen after the war stops? Nobody knows. Nobody can predict. So usually crafts and arts flourish when it is peaceful around them. In Palestine, although it hasn't been that peaceful, but it wasn't as destructive as the Syrian war, as the civil war in Syria, nothing like that. And there has been this diaspora, living in the diaspora of Palestinians in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Syria itself, that made them continue the art or craft of embroidery. But how long it would last with the machine, with the introduction of the machine, with the political situation, with the lack of peace? Who knows what will happen? I don't think, I cannot predict, but I can doubt that within the coming 10 years, we'll have as much of the art of embroidery as we've had the last 10 years. I really don't think so. I think the point you raised about lack of peace or internal stability being a major threat to protection of cultural heritage is absolutely valid. But there's also the point about imports, free, cheap imports. Yes, that started before. Surely that is also a main threat to this industry, because it's so much more expensive in terms of a labor-intensive industry like embroidery to continue to rely on that as a way of providing clothing. I see a few hands up here. Let's start from you, and then I'll come to you. About men? Practicing embroidery? No, no, not in these three countries. There is only in Syria, they were men who practiced embroidery in gold threads, and that came later, but also not that much later, but that was the only form of embroidery. The cross stitch, no, men did not practice it. Chauvinism, my dear. Would you, Dr. Majid, would you sit and embroider a nice piece of pillowcase for your wife? I don't know. I see, okay. We have a volunteer, I really remember that. Okay, please, go ahead. South of Jordan? Yes, I didn't go into that. I was asked by my dear friends here first to take embroidery in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, including all the Gulf states, and Yemen. Palestine. Palestine and Yemen. So I said, my God, I'm going to write a whole book with this. And all this to present in 20 to 30 minutes. So I didn't go into Bershiba. I would consider it following Egypt. If I write about Egyptian, I would include Bershiba. Yeah, it's not among the Bedouins because the modern age has not reached them yet. But how long can you shield them from modernity? And their girls, if they go to university, if they study, if they're going to look for other careers than embroidery. Niti? Niti. We have to see what will happen, but I doubt it will continue for very long. Things are changing drastically in our part of the world. Even in Egypt, maybe more than Jordan and Syria and Lebanon. Yes, please. Chinese shawls? Yes. Chinese shawls only in, mostly I would say, in Bethlehem. Because the boys there, they used to go, during under the Ottomans, they used to emigrate to, this is one part, one part I spoke about. Another part, they used to emigrate to South America. In South America, the Manila shawls, the Spanish, and the Chinese as well, they were cheaper than buying Kashmir shawls, what they used to wear before. Kashmir shawls started getting very expensive for them. And then when they went there, those young men used to send their mothers, their fiancés, their sisters, those Chinese and Spanish shawls. And this is how, for a certain period, they were, but they did not diffuse all over Palestine. And only in Bethlehem, because in Bethlehem, they were sort of a small pillbox hat, and the Chinese show, before it used to be white, very thin material on top of it, then the Chinese shawls became fashionable. And I mentioned it because this is one important and major influence that has come to us from the East. Before having all those cultural and commercial ties with China and the Far East. There's a question there with the microlady. Yes, sorry. What I wanted to ask is, from seeing a lot of the slides, that you referenced where they're actually stored is in the West. Is there any program to document these out, let's say in Jordan? Any program to document these in Jordan, or anywhere else? There are, yes, there are. There is one lady with that qawar is her name. She has the biggest collection of national dresses, or peasant dresses, or Bedouin dresses, whatever you want to call them. I think anywhere. She had several exhibitions in the West, including London. But she is documenting. And there are many books that have come out on Jordanian and Palestinian embroidered dresses. Yes, they are. There's also the book by Sheila Ware on Palestine. Sheila, of course, of course, of course. Yes, embroidery, especially. Yeah. You have the book. Bravo. I mentioned Sheila because she's associated with the Institute. Yeah. Okay, we have a question here. You're an Excellency, please. No, they're mainly separate. But because of economic reasons, the French, I know the French designers, Saint Laurent, Gilles La Roche, blah, blah, they were doing a lot of their embroidered clothes in India. And this you could tell from the colors and the beads and the payets that was being used. It was made in India. It's much cheaper. And it's an economic reason, not because they wanted to, they studied Indian embroidery and they wanted to infuse it in their no. It is just because economically, Europe has become very expensive and handy work is very expensive in Europe. But that's the only one, but I cannot tell you that I personally don't know of any transfer of our embroidery from the Arab countries to Europe. Well, not by governments. My dear, when you have a warmer going on all around you, you don't think of preserving embroidery. I'm sorry, but when you have two million refugees in a country of seven million, you cannot add to your responsibilities, the encouragement. But like in Lebanon, Lebanon they are the only country that are really successful in creating private societies, welfare societies. The ladies there who are doing beautiful works and modernized embroidered works. This is the only country. I know of the Gulf, I've seen there, but their embroidery is totally absolutely different from the Levant. And of course, many new elements were introduced to their local Bedouin embroidery. In Iraq, I know the Christian community, it is a small community, and please correct me if I am wrong, in the north they are working with NGOs, on producing typical Iraqi embroidery. But it's minimal. First, because most of the Christian community were left Iraq. Others were massacred. Whoever is left there is practicing embroidery to make a living. Yes, please. Who can she make it? What advice would you give to second-generation expat young people who sit between different cross-sections of our society and the West, so as not to lose the rich tradition? Embroidery classes, that's so us? Should we be thinking? I wish I had an answer for that. That is a very difficult question because you are living in England, not in one of your countries. For example, maybe you can be in contact with some people who are producing embroidery there and try to sell it for them here. Try and have a show of... I don't live here, I don't know how easy, how difficult that is, but to try and have... There is a wife of the Jordanian ambassador she might be able to help you, really. Otherwise, I don't know how you can help other than trying to market whatever they are doing back home. I don't know how receptive the Iraqi ambassador here would be or the Egyptian or the Syrian or they would have their burdens, but the Jordanian will help. So as we are very conscious of linking up with the Middle Eastern communities and this is why as part of the centenary year, in fact, we have several cultural days planned to celebrate the culture of some of the countries of our region and in fact, the next one we have in February 25th is devoted to Palestine. So if you know any artists, anybody who can contribute to that then, if they want to showcase their work or even market and sell it, as part of an ongoing weekend of celebration of Palestinian culture and art, we would be very interested to hear from you. Next question. Yes, please. You can't, I can't at least say, I can maybe now after I've written this, tell from which village, from which town, let's say, but I cannot tell whether it was from a refugee camp or because they use the same patterns. And if there is any change, I'm not such an expert to know if the pattern has changed. Actually, thanks to Dr. Hassanyan who made me prepare this paper. The credit goes to Marianne. Well, it's been fascinating. It's been a great pleasure to be able to host you back at SOAS and to inaugurate the lecture series accompanying the exhibition. So a big thank you to you. But I'm going to ask Marianne to come and offer a vote of thanks and say a little bit more briefly about the exhibition itself and bring the evening to a close. We are deeply grateful that you were able to come and give us this lovely lecture. It was humorous. It was informative. And it gave us an insight into three major countries, Palestine, Syria and Jordan. What I have tried very hard to do in this exhibition is to preserve our heritage. When you see the dresses in the exhibition, they have their villages and their tribal areas embroidered as fronts on their garments. When a woman approached a certain person, they could tell that she came from Bethlehem or from Jerusalem or from Bedejan or any of the other cities. And it was because of the motives and the colors that she used. Everybody used cross stitch except for a certain part of the country in Bethunia. But you could immediately tell by the colors, by the cut of the dress, by the cut of the sleeves which area she was coming from. This is historical information. This is geographical information. And sadly, we are losing so much of it. The idea of this exhibition was to see clothes in their context. Not what the poor women embroidered and what men wove as their dreams. And hence the title embroidered tales and woven dreams because for us and preserving them means preserving the geography, the history, the social rituals, the social historical knowledge which is being lost to us. And so to the young lady who comes from so many different areas, I'd say that if you wrote a paper about this and published it, we would have it for future references. And that in itself would be a major, major contribution. Princes, from our part of the world we, when a very erudite human being and a very knowledgeable woman has given us and shared her knowledge with us, we present her with a mantle. It's my great pleasure to present you with a handbook. I hope that many of you will find time to come and visit the exhibition whenever it's possible for you. Thank you. Let me end by thanking you very much for your interest and for your attention and also posing excellent questions. And please join me finally in showing our appreciation to Princes Wejdan Al-Hashmi for her excellent work.