METHODS OF FOUNDATION CONSTRUCTION ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOILS FOR RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION OF HISTORICAL BUILDINGS. CONTENT VERIFICATION OF AN ARABIC HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPT

This paper discusses a criticism of a historical Arabic manuscript from 13 th century A.H, different types of foundation construction in various kinds of soil and how foundations had been constructed on basis of the case of each kind of soil. There are two copies of t his manuscript; one of them is in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the other is in King Saud University. I depend on both copies for my research (codicology) of the manuscript to extract, criticize, draw and analyze all the mentioned methods. The manuscript ha s no drawings, the terms it uses are highly technical and some of them have become irrelevant these days. I returned to old dictionaries of Arabic to define their meanings accurately. Not only this, but I also put illustrative geometric graphics and some f ield work photos to make it easy to understand. The manuscript classifies the soil into different kinds on basis of their components and hardness and gives complete information about the methods for foundation construction in each soil. It also discusses t he required treatment of each kind of soil and foundation construction on the sea bottom (water). From this study, we can get useful information of the methods and materials used in the restoration and conservation processes of historical foundations of th e buildings. During any restoration project, it is very important to know and identify the techniques, materials and traditional methods to make use of in our treatments of historical buildings. This can also help to know some of the reasons and causes of the structural problems related to the soil and foundation construction techniques of the historical buildings. By knowing these techniques, the traditional methods can be improved by using new technologies in both soil and fo undation tests and restoration .