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Traditional mud-brick houses that the people of northern Syria have built for thousands of years risk disappearing, as 12 years of war have emptied villages and left the buildings crumbling.
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Also knowns as "beehive houses", the conical adobe structures are designed to keep cool in the blazing desert sun, while their thick walls also retain warmth in the winter.
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"Our village once had 3,000 to 3,500 residents and some 200 mud houses," said Mahmud al-Mheilej, standing beside deserted homes with weeds growing out of the roofs. This is the Umm Amuda Kabira village in Aleppo province - among a handful of places where residents long used to live in the small domed houses, made of mud mixed with brittle hay.
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All of the mud-brick homes have been abandoned, Mheilej said, pointing at a tumbledown wall, the remnants of a collapsed house. "There is no one left to take care of the houses, that's why they are decaying," he added. "In time, they will disappear without a trace."
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Lebanese architect Fadlallah Dagher said the construction technique "is believed to have originated during the Neolithic period some 8,000 years ago".
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A photo shows the ceiling of a traditional mud-brick house known as 'beehive house' in the village of Umm Amuda al-Kabira in Aleppo's eastern countryside, north of Damascus, on August 11, 2023.
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Issa Khodr, 58, who took refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, is one of the last Syrians with expertise in building the structures, which require regular upkeep.
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