Iraq · Wood / Hardstone Carving

Baghdad Shanasheel Carved Lattice Window Joinery

Shanasheel (also shanashil); mashrabiya (the wider Islamic architectural term for the same element)

The fine hand-joinery and lattice-carving of shanasheel, projecting bay windows built onto the upper floors of traditional Iraqi houses, an Islamic architectural element distinguishing the domestic architecture of Baghdad and Basra since possibly as early as the 11th to 12th century Abbasid era. Turkish and Jewish artisans from Baghdad specifically mastered the profession of designing and crafting these oriel windows and their intricate wooden latticework, with named historic Baghdad locations -- Abbas Affandi, Al Rasheed Street, Al Jumhouriyeh Street, and Hanoun souk -- once embracing hundreds of shanasheel balconies and windows. The building process relies entirely on hand skill supported by basic tools: craftsmen cut wood into hundreds of identical pieces, then use hand-operated lathes to transform the cut pieces into smooth shapes -- beads and joints -- before assembling the turned pieces through interlacing to create screens of varying size and pattern; this fine joinery demands immense labor and patience, since craftsmen must work within strict geometric patterns to assemble the finished screens and windows, most typically rectangular and measuring 1.2 to 1.8 meters in length. Some shanasheel houses took more than three years to build given the sheer density of detail involved, relying primarily on teakwood, alongside mulberry (tekkei) and Sidr (buckthorn) wood and other available local timbers; the upper portion of the windows was additionally ornamented with colored glass introduced in small pieces within the pierced wood pattern, painted black or another dark color. Residents of Baghdad have historically been extremely proud of this specific form of ornamentation, considering it entirely their own, though its origin is understood to be Persian. Hassan Mansour, a 32-year-old visual artist and sculpture lecturer at the University of Baghdad's College of Arts and Cultural Education, has directly worked, hammer and chisel in hand, to recreate traditional shanasheel window designs as a specific means of protecting Iraq's cultural heritage. The craft's decline began specifically in the 1940s, when the modernization of Iraqi urban planning promoted a more Western style of architecture that broke with this tradition, causing shanasheel to disappear from new buildings; the craft has continued to face further documented pressure from chaotic conditions across Iraq since 2003. The Iraqi poet Badr Shaker Alsyyab (1926-1964) directly embedded the shanashil within Iraqi literary culture, describing in his poem The Shanasil of al-Chalabi's Daughter his lover coming into view from behind such a window. Concerned that this traditional architectural element was in danger of being lost to modernity, twentieth-century artists and photographers including Lorna Selim and Rifat Chadirji specifically documented surviving shanasheel for posterity. Local skilled craftsmen and traditional wooden-design production remain available today to fulfil demand for interior doors, partitions, and space dividers loosely based on original shanasheel designs, though this contemporary vernacular production is considered less significant than the original historic craft, given the ongoing challenging conditions in Iraq since 2003.

Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not independently inscribed