RIYADH: As the Muslim world welcomes the new Hijri year, employees at the Grand Mosque began the annual process of replacing the kiswa of the Kaaba on Tuesday evening. A specialist team is supervising the process which involves removing the golden rings fastening the kiswa to the Kaaba, clothing the holy site in its new cover, and finally removing the old cover by letting it drop underneath the new one. Over 100 skilled craftspeople worked on producing the 56 pieces of hand-embroidered kiswa, and each piece took between 60 to 120 days to embroider. 120 kilograms of gold thread and 100 kilograms of silver were used in the process.