Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, inaugurated on Monday the old public standpipe (sabil) and Quran school (kuttab) of Abdel-Baqi bin Khair El-Din, known as Sabil Al-Tobji, in Darb Saada, after the completion of restoration and maintenance works.
He said that the new openings confirms the keenness of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities represented by the Supreme Council of Antiquities to preserve archaeological sites in all their historical eras in general, and in the historic Cairo region in particular, as it is one of the archaeological sites registered on UNESCO World Heritage List, adding that the restoration work was funded by one of the people of the area.
For his part, Hisham Sami, Assistant Minister of Tourism and Antiquities for Antiquities and Museums Projects and General Supervisor of the Projects Sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that Standpipe was fully documented before the start of its restoration work, which included architectural and meticulous restoration, as the walls were treated and restored architecturally and structurally, and the modern floors were replaced with slabs of stone or marble, with the removal of the layers of modern whiteness added during previous periods. In addition to treating roofs architecturally, isolating them against rain water leakage, and completing the missing ones.
While the meticulous restoration work included showing the colors of the ceiling of the cassation room and strengthening the layers of colors, cleaning the main façade stones, showing the decorative elements in them, cleaning and strengthening the metal elements, cleaning and strengthening the wooden elements such as windows, doors and other elements according to the archaeological principles, and the lighting system was also developed.
