Iraqi Laborer Preserves Calligraphic Art

Iraqi calligrapher Wael al-Ramadan, 49, wipes the glass on one of his Arabic calligraphy framed art pieces at his workshop in al-Ashar district of Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 19, 2021. (AFP)
Iraqi calligrapher Wael al-Ramadan, 49, wipes the glass on one of his Arabic calligraphy framed art pieces at his workshop in al-Ashar district of Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 19, 2021. (AFP)
TT
20

Iraqi Laborer Preserves Calligraphic Art

Iraqi calligrapher Wael al-Ramadan, 49, wipes the glass on one of his Arabic calligraphy framed art pieces at his workshop in al-Ashar district of Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 19, 2021. (AFP)
Iraqi calligrapher Wael al-Ramadan, 49, wipes the glass on one of his Arabic calligraphy framed art pieces at his workshop in al-Ashar district of Iraq's southern city of Basra on December 19, 2021. (AFP)

When he is not hauling concrete blocks on a construction site in northern Iraq, Jamal Hussein devotes his time to preserving the gentle art of Arabic calligraphy.

Though he has won awards in numerous competitions, Hussein acknowledged that "you can't live on this", the artistic handwriting of Arabic script.

"I have a big family. I have to find other work," said the father of 11, who is 50 years old and earns his keep working on building sites in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Ranya.

Last week, the United Nations culture agency declared Arabic calligraphy an "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity", following a campaign by 16 countries led by Saudi Arabia and including Iraq.

"The fluidity of Arabic script offers infinite possibilities, even within a single word, as letters can be stretched and transformed in numerous ways to create different motifs," UNESCO said on its website.

Abdelmajid Mahboub from the Saudi Heritage Preservation Society involved in the proposal to UNESCO said the number of specialized Arab calligraphic artists had dropped sharply.

Hussein is one of them, and he welcomed the UNESCO decision.

He hopes it will push "the Iraqi government and the autonomous Kurdistan region to adopt serious measures" to support calligraphy -- "khat" in Arabic -- and its artists.

Practicing since the 1980s, his decades of experience and participation in competitions are attested to by about 40 medals and certificates displayed at his home.

In October he came second in an Egyptian online competition, and is now training for a contest next month in the Iraqi city of Najaf.

For decades, in the major regional centers of Cairo, Amman, Beirut or Casablanca, calligraphy was displayed on storefronts, on walls featuring popular sayings, or on plaques at the entrances of buildings to signal the presence of a lawyer or a doctor.

Today, the remnants of this calligraphy are only visible on the faded facades of old shops.

Still, nostalgia for the vintage aesthetic has become something of a trend, as hipsters of the region post pictures of their discoveries for their followers on social media.

But in impoverished, war-scarred Iraq, there is no support from the government "whether for calligraphy or for other arts," Hussein lamented.

"Because of technology, the sanctity of calligraphy has declined," he told AFP.

"Calligraphy requires more time, more effort and is costlier. People are moving towards cheaper technological production."

At the other end of Iraq, in the southern city of Basra, Wael al-Ramadan opens his shop in an alley.

A client arrives to inquire about the preparation of an administrative stamp used to confirm attendance.

Ramadan seizes one of his sharp-nibbed pens and starts again to practice the art which his father introduced him to when he was still a child.

On paper he slowly begins to trace the requested words, with Arabic letters distinguished by their elegant curves.

Like his fellow calligrapher Hussein, Ramadan applauds UNESCO for its "great support for calligraphy and calligraphers all over the world."

Ramadan earns money by teaching the discipline in schools but also sells his skill for advertisement purposes.

"We hope that the government will take an interest in this art, through exhibitions and competitions," said Ramadan, 49.

"The survival of Arabic calligraphy depends on the support of the state."

It depends, too, on the devotion of men like Hussein and Ramadan.

"I obviously hope that my children will succeed me, just like I followed in my father's footsteps," Ramadan said with a smile.



New T-Rex Ancestor Discovered in Drawers of Mongolian Institute

A life reconstruction of the newly identified dinosaur species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which lived 86 million years ago in Mongolia, is seen in this handout illustration released on June 11, 2025. (Julius Csotonyi/Handout via Reuters)
A life reconstruction of the newly identified dinosaur species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which lived 86 million years ago in Mongolia, is seen in this handout illustration released on June 11, 2025. (Julius Csotonyi/Handout via Reuters)
TT
20

New T-Rex Ancestor Discovered in Drawers of Mongolian Institute

A life reconstruction of the newly identified dinosaur species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which lived 86 million years ago in Mongolia, is seen in this handout illustration released on June 11, 2025. (Julius Csotonyi/Handout via Reuters)
A life reconstruction of the newly identified dinosaur species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which lived 86 million years ago in Mongolia, is seen in this handout illustration released on June 11, 2025. (Julius Csotonyi/Handout via Reuters)

Misidentified bones that languished in the drawers of a Mongolian institute for 50 years belong to a new species of tyrannosaur that rewrites the family history of the mighty T-Rex, scientists said Wednesday.

This slender ancestor of the massive Tyrannosaurus Rex was around four meters (13 feet) long and weighed three quarters of a ton, according to a new study in the journal Nature.

"It would have been the size of a very large horse," study co-author Darla Zelenitsky of Canada's University of Calgary told AFP.

The fossils were first dug up in southeastern Mongolia in the early 1970s, but at the time were identified as belonging to a different tyrannosaur, Alectrosaurus.

For half a century, the fossils sat in the drawers at the Institute of Paleontology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in the capital Ulaanbaatar.

Then PhD student Jared Voris, who was on a trip to Mongolia, started looking through the drawers and noticed something was wrong, Zelenitsky said.

It turned out the fossils were well-preserved, partial skeletons of two different individuals of a completely new species.

"It is quite possible that discoveries like this are sitting in other museums that just have not been recognized," Zelenitsky added.

They named the new species Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which roughly means the dragon prince of Mongolia because it is smaller than the "king" T-Rex.

Zelenitsky said the discovery "helped us clarify a lot about the family history of the tyrannosaur group because it was really messy previously".

The T-Rex represented the end of the family line.

It was the apex predator in North America until 66 million years ago, when an asteroid bigger than Mount Everest slammed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Three quarters of life on Earth was wiped out, including all the dinosaurs that did not evolve into birds.

Around 20 million years earlier, Khankhuuluu -- or another closely related family member -- is now believed to have migrated from Asia to North America using the land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska.

This led to tyrannosaurs evolving across North America.

Then one of these species is thought to have crossed back over to Asia, where two tyrannosaur subgroups emerged.

One was much smaller, weighing under a ton, and was nicknamed Pinocchio rex for its long snout.

The other subgroup was huge and included behemoths like the Tarbosaurus, which was only a little smaller than the T-rex.

One of the gigantic dinosaurs then left Asia again for North America, eventually giving rise to the T-Rex, which dominated for just two million years until the asteroid struck.