Amrit volunteers meet Dr. Mahmoud Al-Sayed; the minister of culture .

In the photo: The first row: on your right hand you can see Waaed Al Mhanna, Nagham Arnouq, Zoubaida Abudulah, Samaan Daiaa , Dr.Mahmoud AlSayed, Talal Kassouha , Rana Al-Hamdan, Khadeja Dayoub, Isam Abd-Raheem.
The second row: Hisham Abd-Razaq.
 

Amrit volunteers met Dr. Mahmoud Al-Sayed, the minister of culture on 5/10/2005 in the ministry of culture, Damascus.
The minister started the meeting by thanking the volunteers and their sincere national efforts in protecting the civilized heritage and wish them continuity and success.
Then, he gave a brief comment about the new developments in Amrit and the attitude of responsible sides in the government and the attitude of Tartous governorate especially the infractions in Amrit .As a result of these infractions, a decision has been taken to establish an investigation committee in his meeting with Tartous' mayor dated on 14/5/2004 in the city council.
The minister also showed the ministry activities for protecting Amrit(the only existed Phoenician metropolis)and the need for keeping it in accordance with UNESCO as one of the international cultural heritage monuments.
He assured on the idea of the necessity of activating the decisions and fasting the measures and achieving the special books related to the Directorate of Antiques. Many solutions have been agreed on according to their priorities.
Amrit volunteers talked briefly about what they did during the last period as activities for supporting the excavation missions and spreading conscious concerning the importance of Amrit , asking public sectors and coordinating with them in addition to organize and participate in cultural activities to spot the light on Amrit.
Everyone of the volunteers talked in the meeting about her/his participation:
Zoubaida Abdulah and Khadeja Diaoub talked about the translation team beside to Majd Kara (French, Spanish ,and English) and some Amrit friends who are participating in translating the website into the aforementioned languages.
Hisham Abd-Razaq, the lawyer, talked about the legal part showing his legal research(" Depending on the Syrian Antiquities law:" the abuses and infractions in Amrit, the Canaanite Phoenician metropolis).
Samaan Daiaa" a student in preparatory school" talked about his admiration towards the volunteers and their activities and his desire to work with them and that was the reason for joining them.
Nagham Arnouq talked about the cultural side of the volunteers' work and the artistic activities like theatre, participating in festivals and plastic art especially the exhibition by Dr.Ghada Zaghbour "Amrit Sorry".
Waaed AlMhana and Rana AlHamdan ; the journalists, talked about the role of press in highlighting Amrit issue to show the truth and correcting the mistakes and to spread conscious concerning the importance of keeping the cultural heritage.
Eng. Talal Kassouha talked about constructing and developing Amrit website (www.amrit-syria.com) and showed an explanation on his laptop to the most important parts of the website and the information that he presented and the successful link that the website established with the Syrians in Syria and abroad and all concerned people.
He presented a part of future solutions for Amrit. He also gave his suggestion to make Amrit Marathon as an annual local and international activity that will contribute in spot the light on Amrit and its archeological stadium that many researchers assured that it is oldest than the Olympic stadium in Greece.
The minister supported the idea of enriching Amrit annual festival by Amrit marathon.
At the end, the volunteers presented to the minister the volunteers' T-shirt and a sculpture made by Amrit friend(Batoul Khoundah); a student in plastic arts, that represents one of AlMaghazel, then a souvenir picture has been captured.
The meeting has been preceded by an interview that combined(Waaed, Talal, and Hisham)with Dr. Bassam Jamous; the General director of Antiquities and Museums under a title" Let's Cooperate".
The importance of active cooperation between the volunteers and the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums was shown in the interview . Dr. Bassam talked about showing the archeological importance of Amrit that is clear in its known ruins and its new findings.
Talal invited again the Directorate of Antiquities to talk about its activities in Amrit by making a free corner on Amrit website and for spreading the findings by the national excavating team in Amrit just as the mutual foreign mission in other excavating sites.
In the meeting with the minister, an official agreement has been taken on joining new volunteers(The text). After few days of the meeting ,Amrit volunteers gave two books to the ministry of culture, and the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums:
-The first one includes presenting information.
-The second one includes organizing Amrit festival and marathon.