Wednesday, February 18, 2026 @ 6:00 pm-8:00 pm

Najaf is a unique city shaped by Islamic learning and pilgrimage, centred on the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali. The shrine sits at the centre of the old town, which was once the walled medieval city, characterised by Islamic schools, libraries and dense courtyard housing along narrow alleyways. Since the 1950s, the old town has been transformed by the introduction of wide roads for vehicle traffic and the replacement of its traditional neighbourhoods with pilgrimage facilities and high-rise hotels. The remaining historic buildings are often abandoned and in poor condition, awaiting restoration or, more often, demolition.

Above ground the houses are similar to those in other historic Iraqi cities; two or three storey brick courtyard houses, including intricately decorated and carved wooden panels and pillars in the shanasheel style, and small wind scoops (badghirs) to channel air through the walls into the lower parts of the house. The most unusual features of Najaf’s houses lie below street level. Instead of the single level basement (serdab), common in other Iraqi cities, Najaf’s geology allows for larger multi-chambered serdabs descending two or three levels (occasionally more). Under larger houses these sometimes include double-height vaulted chambers used for religious gatherings.

This talk will present the results of the project Documenting the Endangered Historic Houses of Najaf, funded by the British Academy and supported by BISI. This project undertook detailed heritage documentation of traditional houses in Najaf’s old town, with a particular emphasis on their unique subterranean architecture, which often pre-dates the houses above.

Dr Mary Shepperson is a Lecturer in Architectural and Urban Heritage at the Liverpool School of Architecture. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate training in archaeology at Cambridge and UCL. Mary has excavated extensively across the Middle East and North Africa, but since 2012 most of her work has been in Iraq, including major excavations at the sites of Tell Khaiber, Charax Spasinou and Erbil Citadel. In 2020 she took up a post at the University of Liverpool and shifted her focus towards heritage, undertaking a heritage documentation project in the Iraqi marshes in 2024. Outside of academia Mary is a portrait painter, specialising in humans, horses and invertebrates. She is a council member of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq.