MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p11
A. Almagro, Alfonso Jiménez
{"title":"The Kutubiyya Mosque of Marrakesh Revisited","authors":"A. Almagro, Alfonso Jiménez","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p11","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The aim of this article is to present a new survey of the Kutubiyya Mosque in Marrakesh (Morocco) produced between 2015 and 2018 using photogrammetric techniques. This work intends to close a surprising gap in the available information for one of the most important monuments of Western Islamic architecture. We also present our preliminary observations, formed during the course of producing these drawings. Although a building such as this mosque—with one part in use and therefore maintained regularly and another part heavily restored as a ruin—is difficult to investigate archaeologically, an analysis of the chronology and the construction process is proffered. We reject the prevalent theory that there were two subsequent mosques, with the newer one serving as a substitute for the older building. Instead, by presenting new dates and arguments, we propose that the Kutubiyya represents a single mosque built in two phases, the first part of which later fell into ruin.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48351533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p03
Doris Behrens-Abouseif
{"title":"A Mamluk Pen Box Connected to the Thousand and One Nights and the Historian Ibn ʿAbd al-Zahir","authors":"Doris Behrens-Abouseif","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p03","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses a remarkable Mamluk pen box in the Louvre, focusing on its inscriptions, which consist of three poems: one by the historian Muhyi ’l-Din Ibn ʿAbd al-Zahir, another by his son Taj al-Din, and a third, anonymous poem cited in a tale of The 1001 Nights. The article tries to trace the history of the pen box and reconstruct its original layout.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46618991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p08
N. Özlü
{"title":"“Barbarous Magnificence in Glass Cases”: The Imperial Treasury and Ottoman Self-Display at the Topkapı Palace","authors":"N. Özlü","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p08","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Topkapı Palace and its treasures had long been a point of curiosity for Europeans, and when the doors of the Imperial Treasury finally opened for them in the mid-nineteenth century, the visitors—charged with Orientalist preconceptions—oscillate between admiration and disappointment. Capitalizing on the expertise they had gained in representing their artistic and cultural identity in world’s fairs, museums, and exhibitions, the Ottomans developed certain strategies for displaying their imperial heritage in the Topkapı Palace. During the reign of Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909), both the procedure for accessing the palace grounds and the tours became standardized, yet a sense of imperial privilege and exclusivity was deliberately maintained. During these choreographed tours, certain “self-Orientalizing” spectacles that mimicked the traditional palace ceremonies were performed for the foreign gaze. Yet the display of the treasury is more than simply a space curated for touristic purposes; the collection bears historic continuities and dynastic references that have been perpetuated as symbols of imperial legitimacy for centuries. Visual and textual sources of the period attest that the display strategies of the Imperial Treasury emphasized the authenticity of the collection and the venerableness of the dynasty by appropriating the Orientalist visual vocabulary.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45474417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p12
N. Erzini, Stephen Vernoit
{"title":"The Palanquin Thrones of the ʿAlawite Sultans of Morocco","authors":"N. Erzini, Stephen Vernoit","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p12","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The ceremonies of the ʿAlawite dynasty were often held out of doors, with the monarch appearing on horseback and under a parasol, escorted by a master of ceremonies holding a large baton; a row of saddled horses led by grooms; lancers; ensign bearers; musicians; a horse bearing a copy of the Qurʾan or volumes of the Hadith; and attendants who performed the ritual waving of white cloths. When the sultan conducted annual expeditions to subdue rebellious tribes and extract taxes, he was accompanied by a red-curtained palanquin slung between two mules, a practical necessity in case the monarch was indisposed. Most of these traditions continued the practices of earlier dynasties. However, for the later ʿAlawite period, more detailed descriptions are available, and these indicate that the palanquin also served as a throne. The sultan sat enthroned in the palanquin, which was placed in the royal audience tent facing a parade ground. In a similar fashion, European carriages served as portable thrones for receptions within royal palaces. This essay examines the history and iconography of the Moroccan palanquin throne, along with some associated rituals and insignia. While palanquins have been abandoned by the ruling dynasty and superseded by motor vehicles, a similar iconography survives in religious processions carrying another type of draped box, the cover of a cenotaph from a saint’s tomb.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42060799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p02
Corinne Mühlemann
{"title":"Made in the City of Baghdad? Medieval Textile Production and Pattern Notation Systems of Early Lampas Woven Silks","authors":"Corinne Mühlemann","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p02","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 A small Arabic inscription on a fragment of an early lampas woven silk, today preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (inv. no. 33.371), states that it was made in the city of Baghdad. But an orthographic error within the Arabic inscription reveals the actual place of manufacture: al-Andalus. I analyze this fragment together with a passage from the ḥisba manual of al-Saqati. Ḥisba manuals contain rules composed by the muḥtasib, the market inspector. Abu ʿAbdallah Muhammad Ibn Abu Muhammad al-Saqati was the market inspector of Málaga in Spain, and his work, the Kitāb fī ādāb al-ḥisba, was compiled at the close of the eleventh and opening of the twelfth centuries, at the same time that the new lampas weaving technology arrived in al-Andalus. Through a discussion of the Arabic terms rasm and bayt and a calculation of a hypothetical standard-sized silk produced in Málaga, I demonstrate the potential of ḥisba manuals to shed light on textile manufacture, loom technology, and the transfer of weaving knowledge and patterns in early twelfth-century al-Andalus. Further, shared terminology between looms, poetry, and music, evident in the term bayt, permits a discussion of rhythm in the making of lampas woven silks and an exploration of the traditions in which weaving knowledge is rooted.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41721365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p10
Belgi̇n Turan Özkaya
{"title":"Entangled Geographies, Contested Narratives: The Canning Marbles and the Ottoman Response to Antiquity","authors":"Belgi̇n Turan Özkaya","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p10","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The history of archaeology in the nineteenth century has conventionally been studied from the point of view of Europeans, who are credited as the inventors of modern archaeology. Although the blatantly Eurocentric perspective of earlier scholarship has been challenged in recent decades by a proliferation of works on the “source countries” where the bulk of archaeological material originated before being displaced to Europe, the trajectory of European archaeology has not been abandoned as the measure by which to assess emerging sensibilities about antiquity in the nineteenth century. In this essay, I trace the origins of a group of “marbles” from the British Museum, the Canning marbles, and propose to rethink a mid-nineteenth-century Ottoman attempt to establish a museum to house such “marbles” in the light of the Ottoman exhibitionary practices in the longue durée. My aim is to challenge both contemporaneous European narratives on nineteenth-century Ottoman attitudes to antiquity and current scholarship on Ottoman museology that attributes its proper emergence to the last two decades of the century, after the well-known Ottoman polymath Osman Hamdi Bey resumed the directorship of the Müze-i Hümāyūn (Ottoman Imperial Museum).","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47399722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p05
Cailah Jackson
{"title":"The Arts of the Book in the Aydınid Realm: Exploring a Neglected Medical Manuscript from Late Fourteenth-Century Western Rum","authors":"Cailah Jackson","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p05","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 It is now well established in scholarship that the Turkmen principalities (beyliks) of late medieval Rum possessed lively, dynamic court cultures and that several of their members were enthusiastic supporters of art and architecture. Recent publications have shown that, like their more famous Ilkhanid and Mamluk contemporaries, several Turkmen princes were avid patrons of the Islamic arts of the book. For the most part, however, scholars have not examined the contributions of the Aydınid principality (1308–1425) to this art form. Before the emergence of Ottoman domination, the Aydınids were one of the most powerful and prosperous local polities, based on the western coast of present-day Turkey in and around Birgi, Ayasuluk (Selçuk), Tire, and İzmir. In an effort to contribute to ongoing discussions concerning the production and patronage of the late medieval arts of the book from Rum, this article analyzes and contextualizes an illuminated manuscript that was produced for Fakhr al-Din ʿIsa ibn Muhammad ibn Aydın (r. ca. 1360–90). This manuscript appears not to have been studied in any depth before. Given the small number of securely identified manuscripts from late fourteenth-century Rum, this material marks an exciting and welcome addition to the corpus.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45079093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p13
Courtney Lesoon
{"title":"The Sphero-Conical as Apothecary Vessel: An Argument for Dedicated Use","authors":"Courtney Lesoon","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p13","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Sphero-conical vessels are ubiquitous in the archaeological record. However, their intended use has remained a conundrum. A multitude of conjectures have been proposed, such as that the sphero-conical vessel was a container for mercury, a grenade, a perfume sprinkler, an aeolipile, a beer gourd, a hookah pipe, and a plumb bob. Faced with a seemingly contradictory body of evidence, scholars have concluded that the sphero-conical vessel must have been a multi-use object. I disagree. This study offers a theory of dedicated use: the sphero-conical vessel was intended and produced to store pharmaceuticals, specifically apothecary compounds in personal-use dosages. My argument is built on a close analysis of material form, epigraphic evidence, decorative motifs, and representations of the sphero-conical vessel in other media. The re-inscribing of the sphero-conical vessel into a history of medicine as a tool of the robust Islamic pharmacological industry is rich with potential for furthering our understanding of medicine, apothecary, alchemy, apotropaia, and trade in the medieval Mediterranean.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44004689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p04
Adeline Laclau
{"title":"A Scholar, Calligrapher, and Illuminator in Early Fourteenth-Century Cairo: The Illuminated Manuscripts of Ahmad al-Mutatabbib","authors":"Adeline Laclau","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p04","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Ahmad al-Mutatabbib is one of the few copyists from the Mamluk period to whom several preserved manuscripts can be linked, i.e., five illuminated Qurʾans and a copy of Avicenna’s al-Qānūn fī’l-ṭibb. Among these manuscripts, three are dated and localized and are among the rare illuminated manuscripts of the Mamluk period that mention the name of the city in which they were produced. However, no mention is made of this artist in Mamluk literature. Consequently, I propose to study these manuscripts through the analysis of their writing and illuminations, as well as the Qurʾanic vocalization system explained in three of his Qurʾans. The aim of this article is to shed new light on the place of Ahmad al-Mutatabbib’s works in the illuminated manuscript production of Cairo in the first half of the fourteenth century and to provide new information on the formation and the career of this prolific artist of the Mamluk arts of the book.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42783680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MuqarnasPub Date : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/22118993-00391p06
Rachel Hirsch
{"title":"Building Burhanpur: The Process of Constructing a Mughal City","authors":"Rachel Hirsch","doi":"10.1163/22118993-00391p06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993-00391p06","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 When Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) conquered Burhanpur, the capital of the Khandesh sultanate, in 1601, he catalyzed a decades-long process of transforming the city into a regional capital of the Mughal empire. In this essay, I argue that Mughal Burhanpur was constructed in three stages of spatial and architectural developments over the course of three decades. In the first stage, Akbar symbolically appropriated Burhanpur’s preexisting monumental architecture to demonstrate his conquest over the city. In the second stage, subimperial officers expanded the city through prolific patronage of civic architecture, most notably an underground canal system that carried fresh water several kilometers into the city. Lastly, when Shah Jahan (r. 1628–58) moved to the city in 1629, he implemented a new program of architectural construction that transformed Burhanpur from a provincial capital into an imperial one in just over two years. From symbolic appropriation to urban expansion and then to the implementation of an imperial architectural program, this three-part construction process ultimately transformed a town on the edge of an empire into a legible Mughal city.","PeriodicalId":39506,"journal":{"name":"Muqarnas","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44814828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}