The Board of Scientific Advisors ( for further details see Home ) was founded in November 2000. Its main purpose is to help provide the scientific basis for the new topic and exhibition Castles and Bazars in Crusader Times.

So far the Board has had seven plenary sessions, the most recent being in December 2004.

Board members have set out as the main aims of the GIB e.V.’s new venture their intention to stress the creative exchanges that were possible between different cultures, not – as common thinking still has it – the opposition separating Muslims and Christians. During the some 200 years of the crusades there also was peaceful coexistence between different Christian and Muslim groups.

In this sense the exhibition speaks to the present-day West and Europe as it contributes to an understanding between Islam and Christianity as well as giving a sense of common history shared by both religions. 

The GIB e.V.’s upcoming projects are:

• Interdisciplinary Symposium in January/February 2006 in cooperation with the European Castle Society and the German Castle Society at the Marksburg at Braubach on the Rine:

• Construction of the Hospitaller Castle Crac des Chevaliers according to the method of tachymetrical  measurement i.e. a model in a scale of 1:26,5 ;  footprint 19 x 19 feet;
   height 7,4 feet

• The exhibit will have some 2,000 figurines handmade and created for the purpose using the latest scientific information. These figurines will be of Muslim and Christian dignitaries, armed men and civilians. 

• The exact point in time represented in the exhibition is the phase of Sultan Baibar laying siege to the castle in 1271. 

• Creation of a model of a section of the Bazar of Aleppo, scale 1.25, 4 x 4 m. The model will sue data established by a local architect in spring 2002.     

• The exhibition will have some 750 figurines and items used in bazar life created using the latest scientific information.

• Talks on aspects of the GIB e.V.’s work given by members of the Board of Scientific Advisors at board meetings or the society’s general meetings

• Creation of texts, diagrams, geographical plans and drawings and outlines of historical sites using the latest scientific findings to be used in the show boards.

• Creation of a catalogue to go with the exhibitions, to be published in several languages

• Creation of a scientific publication on the topic of the exhibition (published in German under the direction of Mathias Piana with the title Burgen und Städte der Kreuzzugszeit  im Vorderen Orient