Sharsh Family

Description (The direction towards Mecca (Qibla) is described as eastern and other directions are named accordingly)

A small roughly rectangular enclosure measuring approximately 17 x 8 metres. It borders on a street to the east, on neighbouring funerary enclosures to northern and southern sides, and on the embankment of the Salah Salem motorway to the back (west). A single-storey building occupies the eastern part of the lot, with a gateway between two rooms leading to a small courtyard. The southern room is deeper than the northern one and the hallway, resulting in the L-shaped plan of the building. The entrance gate is placed asymmetrically, because the southern room (apparently, a burial chamber) is wider than the smaller northern one, which is apparently a visitors’ room or a service room. The façade is very simple. It has an entrance gate placed in an undecorated rectangular recess, a double window to the left (south) and a smaller single window to the right. All openings are covered with keel arches that are framed in un-moulded flat projections. Over the windows are empty horizontal recesses in masonry. Water from the roof is drained through very massive stone water-spouts that pierce a stone parapet wall topped with a simple unmoulded projection. There are simple steel grilles in windows; the entrance door leaves are made of welded pieces of rolled steel forming very simple geometric decorative pattern. The lower part of the facade up to the level of window sills is faced with thin stone slabs, apparently as a repair of the wall damaged by rising damp.
It is not clear whether the extreme simplification of decoration results from modernist aesthetics prevailing at the time of construction, or the planned mouldings were never carved.
To the right of the entrance door, a modern marble plaque is mounted, with an incised inscription stating that the funerary enclosure belongs to Hagg Ahmad Mustafa Sharsh and Hagg Muhammad Ahmad Sharsh, with no date.
The interior was inaccessible at the time of recording.