The Damascene wood mosaic is one of the oldest, most special traditional handicrafts in Damascus. The roots of this handicraft extend back to the sixteenth century and it passed down through generations.


You will be amazed watching an expert mosaic craftsman at work, surrounded by thousands of tiny thin pieces of plastic and wood in a multitude of colors. With nimble hands, he fashioned them into patterns of geometrical inspiration for boxes, mirror frames, clock frames, chess boards and all types of furniture pieces.


The word “mosaic” is originally Greek, it means the gods of art and beauty and it is a branch of mosaics that arose at the beginning of the first millennium BC.

The structure of any piece is made of walnut then the mosaic sheets are processed by taking 28 constant wooden rods with a square or triangle portion and median length of 25 cm, then it is collected and cut into chips in various forms and pasted on the mosaic piece using natural glue.


Mosaic is composed of colored wood material that is obtained from beech, almonds, walnuts, roses, lemon, olive, eucalyptus, apricot and cockle. Then it is grouped into forms and geometric patterns with each other to give a beautiful piece of mosaic.

 

Even though these mosaic items are hand-manufactured, to some extent in Egypt, Iran, and other countries, Damascus leads the world in the production of the same items.



Source: arabamerica.com 

artizanasyria.com