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A FRENCH photographer has captured images of the best historic places and cultural sites from across the Arab world ... everything from the most famous national treasures to obscure and forgotten hidden gems.
The stunning photographs by Jean Jacques Gelbart have been featured in the second edition of the book, World Heritage of the Arab Countries launched by the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage, in collaboration with Bahrain Bay, Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (Baca) and the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation.
It sheds light on 86 Unesco-listed sites from 18 Arab countries, written in English, French and Arabic.
The book comes as a sequel to the first edition of the Arab World Heritage book published in 2011, and contains compelling images of landmarks such as the Temple of Bel at Palmyra in Syria before its destruction by the terrorist group Daesh or Islamic State.
It was a chance encounter with Baca president Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa in 2010 that led Jean to take part in the Arab World Heritage project.
While the first book was a huge success, Jean and his wife Karine were also asked to contribute to the second project in 2019 - and the couple set out on a six month journey across the Arab world in November that year.
From Babylon in Iraq to the Dilmun Mounds in Bahrain, they visited several sites that are an integral part of Arab history. The ancient burial mounds is the third site in Bahrain to be featured on the world heritage list after Bahrain Fort and the Pearl Route.
“Just before sunrise and just after sunset, it is generally at this precise moment that the light sublimates the sites,” Jean told the Gulf Weekly.
And every visit was made memorable by the people who accompanied him, ‘the drivers, site managers, tourists, and often the children who are always so curious,” he said.
“My best adventures are those I have with the people I meet in the field.”
Jean started his photographic career when he was 12 years old fiddling with the Kodak Instamatic, a budget photography device series produced from 1983 until 1988. He would photograph his neighbourhood, the Canal Du Midi, a site which several years later was listed on the World Heritage List by Unesco. He was selected to work on world heritage-themed books with his first project dedicated to France.
“We have to thank Shaikha Mai for the Arab heritage project,” he said.
“With her team’s help in Bahrain, we were able to photograph some pieces of the national museum very closely, and from experience, this is very rare.”
Jean and his wife are now working with Shaikha Mai and the team at the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage on a boxed set containing three 64-page books which will provide more details on the three World Heritage sites in Bahrain.
The boxed set is scheduled for release in September 2022.
