Inside the Gypsum-Window Workshop at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque

A nearly completed gypsum window sits at the center of the workshop beside al-Aqsa mosque,

 the third holiest site in Islam (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

A day with the team working to preserve a particularly Islamic tradition 

of stained-glass-window making, using techniques that date back hundreds of years.

One of the workshop team holds a shard of blue glass before a window that is nearly complete.

They work methodically, with bright spotlights shining through the colored windows, and then mix a thinner gypsum, painted to fix the glass shards to the exterior side of the window. When the gypsum dries, the result is a slightly bumpy flat surface that looks nothing like the other side — it’s a bit messier and a bit richer in color due to the fact that there are no angled protruding lines — but it’s no less beautiful.

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