ARS ISLAMICA
THE RESEARCH SEMINARY IN ISLAMIC ART . INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS . UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN . VOLUME V
ANN ARBOR
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS MCMXXXVIII
PRINTED IN U. S. A. BY ANN ARBOR PRESS
CONTENTS
ERIC SCHROEDER An Aquamanile and Some Implications .... 9
MYRON B. SMITH The Wood M imbar in the Masdjid-i Djâmi‘,
Nâïn 21
Epigraphical Notice, by Paul Witter .... 33
ERNST DIEZ A Stylistic Analysis of Islamic Art 36
JOSEPH SCHACHT Ein archaischer Minaret-Typ in Ägypten und
Anatolien 4b
JOAN DU PLAT TAYLOR . . . Medieval Graves in Cyprus 55
NABIA ABBOTT An Arabic-Persian Wooden Kur’änic Manuscript
from the Royal Library of Shäh Husain Sa-
fawï I, 1105-35 h 89
NOTES Hermann Goetz, Sher Shah’s Mausoleum at
Sasaram 97
Arménag Sakisian, La Question des faïences de
la corne d’or 99
George C. Miles, Note on a Die Engraver of
Isfahän 100
Jean Sauvaget, Notes épigraphiques sur quelques
monuments persans 104
WILLY HÄRTNER ..... The Pseudoplanetary Nodes of the Moon’s Orbit
in Hindu and Islamic Iconographies . . . . 113
GERALD REITLINGER . . . The Interim Period in Persian Pottery: An Essay
in Chronological Revision 155
KURT ERDMANN Kairener Teppiche. Teil I: Europäische und
islamische Quellen des 15.-18. Jahrhunderts . 179
JEAN SAUVAGET La Tombe de l’Ortokide Balak 207
D. TALBOT RICE The Expressionist Style in Early Iranian Art . . 216
RICHARD BERNHEIMER . . A Sasanian Monument in Merovingian France . 221
HENRY FIELD and
EUGENE PROSTOV . . . Archaeological Investigations in Central Asia,
1917-37 233
NOTES Burton Y. Berry, The Development of the
Bracket Support in Turkish Domestic Archi- tecture in Istanbul 272
D. Talbot Rice, The Paris Exhibition of Iranian
Art, 1938 282
IN MEMORIAM — Henri C. Gallois, 1885-1938 292
SUPPLEMENT . I. Preliminary Material fora Dictionary of Islamic
Artists i
Editor
RICHARD ETTINGHAUSEN
Consultative Committee
LAURENCE BINYON, ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY, MAURICE S. DIMAND, f HALIL ETHEM, ALBERT GABRIEL, ERNST HERZFELD, ERNST KÜHNEL, JOHN E. LODGE, ALEXANDER G. RUTHVEN, FRIEDRICH SARRE, JOSEF STRZYGOWSKY, GASTON WIET, JOHN G. WINTER
EDITORIAL OFFICE: RESEARCH SEMINARY IN ISLAMIC ART, INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, U. S. A.
ERRATA
Ars Islamica, Volume V, Part i
Page 27, footnote 1 6, 1. 7 and 8 of Arabic text: read ^
for aUI ^ I y****-“' t
1. 9 of Arabic text: read p-äll ^ j» <^1 /or I ^ aJJ I j A-fi’ .
1. 7 of translation : read (a)bi-‘ Abdallah for son of (a)bî-‘ Abdallah. Page 29, Figs. 8 and 9: read Godard for Goddard.
Page 50, Fig. 13: read Grabmoschee for Grabwoschee.
Page 51, Figs. 15-17: read Moscheen for Moschee.
Page 53, 1. 28: read sich an der der for sich ander der.
Page 54, 1. 4: read (von 1330)9.
1. 6: omit footnote 9.
Page 67, 1. u: omit Fig. 17.
Page 70, Grave 17 (a) : read Fig. 40 for Fig. 39.
Grave 18 ( b ): omit Fig. 40.
Page 71, 1. 17: read Fig. 36 for Fig. 42.
Page 77, Fig. 40: read 17 (a) for 18 (6).
Page 81, 1. 7: omit 37.
1. 10: read Fig. 40 for Fig. 39.
1. 25 : read Fig. 39 for Fig. 43.
Page 83, 1. 14: read Fig. 22 for Fig. 24.
1. 16: read Figs. 19, 23, 41 for Figs. 21, 26, 44.
1. 17: read Fig. 15 for Fig. 18.
1. 21: read Fig. 21 for Figs. 23, 35.
Page 84, 1. 7 : add Fig. 27.
1. 17: to Forms add 32.
1. 25: omit 22, add 17.
1. 28: add Forms 23, 30.
Page 87, Fig. 3: read Folio 29 for Folio 9.
Page 91, 1. 4: read hand for head.
Page 93, 1. 4: omit square brackets which contain dates.
Page 100, col. i, 1. 5: read un for une. col. i, 1. 15: omit d’.
col. i, 1. 19: add à situer after contraire.
col. 2, 1. 5 : read ^ j J.
5 j* ^yi
1 1 •&. Jt-5
col. 2, 1. 36: read thirty-six areas for thirty-six times.
Ars Islamica is published in two parts each year by the University of Michigan through the Research Seminary in Islamic Art, a division of the Institute of Fine Arts. The first number was issued in 1934. The first four volumes were edited by Dr. Mehmet Aga-Oglu, who resigned his position in the University of Michigan in the spring of 1938. His successor, Dr. Richard Ettinghausen, will henceforth be in charge of the journal. The delay in appearance of the current number is owing to difficulties that arose in connection with the printing.
The subscription rate of Ars Islamica is $5.00 a year, postpaid. Parts are sold separately at $3.00 each. The price of back volumes, in parts, is $8.00 a volume, except Volume IV, which was issued in increased size and under one cover as a Michigan Centenary issue, and may be purchased for $8.00 in paper covers, $12.00 bound in cloth. Orders for subscriptions should be addressed to the Editor, 4006 Angell Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Orders for back numbers should be addressed to the Uni- versity of Michigan Press, Sales Department, 311 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Cheques and money orders should be made payable to the Uni- versity of Michigan.
J. G. Winter
Director of the Institute of Fine Arts
ARS ISLAMICA
ARS ISLAMICA
THE RESEARCH SEMINARY IN ISLAMIC ART « INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS . UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN . VOL.V, PT. I
ANN ARBOR
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS MCMXXXVIII
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY THE ANN ARBOR PRESS
CONTENTS
ERIC SCHROEDER MYRON B. SMITH
ERNST DIEZ
JOSEPH SCHACHT . . .
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR . . NABIA ABBOTT . . . .
NOTES
SUPPLEMENT
An Aquamanile and Some Implications .... 9
The Wood Mimbar in the Masdjid-i Djâmh,
Nain 21
Epigraphical Notice, by Paul Witter .... 33
A Stylistic Analysis of Islamic Art 36
Ein archaischer Minaret-Typ in Ägypten und
Anatolien 46
Medieval Graves in Cyprus 55
An Arabic-Persian Wooden Kur’änic Manuscript from the Royal Library of Shäh Hüsain Sa-
fawï I, 1105-35 h 89
Hermann Goetz, Sher Shah’s Mausoleum at
Sasaram 97
Arménag Sakisian, La question des faïences de
la corne d’or 99
George C. Miles, Note on a Die Engraver of
Isfahan 100
Jean Sauvaget, Notes épigraphiques sur quelques
monuments persans 104
I. Preliminary Material for a Dictionary of Islamic
Artists iii
Consultative Committee
LAURENCE BINYON ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY MAURICE S. DIMAND HALIL ETHEM ALBERT GABRIEL ERNST HERZFELD
JOHN G. WINTER
ERNST KÜHNEL JOHN E. LODGE ALEXANDER G. RUTHVEN FRIEDRICH SARRE JOSEF STRZYGOWSKI GASTON WIET
EDITORIAL OFFICE: RESEARCH SEMINARY IN ISLAMIC ART UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.
Brass Aquamanile, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
AN AQUAMANILE AND SOME IMPLICATIONS BY ERIC SCHROEDER
A VERY CURIOUS BRASS AQUAMANILE, APPARENTLY FALLING INTO THE ABYSMAL CATEGORY of post-Sassanian metalwares, has been acquired by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.1 Its resemblance to the celebrated aquamanile once in the collection of Count Bobrinsky and now in the Hermitage Museum at Leningrad2 is still striking; it must have been even more so before the Bobrinsky ewer lost its spout, which was probably in form similar to the curved pipe spouts usual on ewers in the East (and even in Europe).3 Such a spout has been fortu- nately preserved on the Boston piece (Figs. 1-3).
The latter is large and very boldly conceived. It stands 38.5 cm. high, and represents a diving bird, crested and tailed with formalized vegetation.4 From its breast curls a spout in serpent form, plumed with formalized leaves; and what appears to be the serpent’s tail curves up as a hollow handle, in the upper end of which is a small flaring mouth, and the hinge for a lid now lost. A third “leg” in front of the two which natural analogy implies assists stability.
Originally cast in brass,5 the work was engraved with formalized feather and vegetable designs, next plated with silver; the engraved lines were then filled with a lacquer which is now quite insoluble with age and can hardly be analyzed.6 It appears to be a golden-toned lacquer rather inexpertly and unevenly tinted with black. Most of the silver plating is now worn off, and some modern owner saw fit to “rebeautify” the work by re-engraving the feather design on the absolutely smooth- worn breast, and by filing off the thin, and no doubt battered, extreme edge of the wings. A malachite paste of very small crystals in a vegetable gum is inlaid in the bird’s eye.
Under the left wing is scratched an inscription in very bad and rough nastaliq, which can be read as:
AiUt jUJL<
Sultan Bakcham Salman, glorious is his splendor.7
The oxidation of the inscription scratches, though advanced enough to indicate an age of some centuries, does not compare with that of the old feather and leaf designs, which must be
1 Catalogue No. 37.470. I am indebted to Dr. Rich- ard Ettinghausen for the original suggestion that this work was made in India, and to Dr. A. K. Coomara- swamy for almost all the Vedic material which I have used in my explanation, as well as for certain informa- tion on details of Indian art.
2 H. Glück and E. Diez, Die Kunst des Islam (Ber- lin, 1925), pp. 436 and 577-
3 E.g., a centaur aquamanile in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition of Master Bronzes at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1937, illus. 119.
4 For an earlier example of a water bird whose
vegetal quality is expressed in the same way, cf. the
crane standing between the two cosmic trees on the
silver-gilt Sassanian vase formerly in the Botkin collec-
tion, Leningrad, in K. Erdmann, “Sasanidische Kunst,” Bilderhefte der Islamischen Abteilung (Berlin, 1937), Hft. 4.
5 W. J. Young made the examination of the ewer which affords the given details.
6 If the recipe is the same as a traditional one, it is made of equal parts of badulla milk, stick lac, hal-tree rosin, and old yak milk. See A. K. Coomaraswamy, Mediaeval Sinhalese Art (Broad Campden, 1908), p. 181.
7 The Salman and the initial letter of the word read as ghiyäyathu are really illegible. For an Indian example of final nün made with two distinct and inadequately curved strokes, cf. a coin of 948 h. (1541-42 a.d.) in S. Lane Poole, Catalogue of Indian Coins, Sultans of Delhi (London, 1884), pp. xxi-xxii.
IO
ERIC SCHROEDER
considered as some centuries older. The Turkish name or epithet “Bakcham” in combination with the title “sultan” may indicate that the ewer was at some time used by a Mughal officer, since the Mughals used the title for military officers not of the highest rank, and Turkish names were fairly common among them.8
This inscription is, of course, Islamic, and a goose is a not unknown form for Islamic ewers.9
What distinguishes the Boston, and perhaps originally the Bobrinsky, ewer is the addition of the snake, which Iranian auspicious decoration in general sedulously avoided. Its rare occurrence on a carpet, for instance, is generally symptomatic of Indian workmanship.10 It is found in Islamic art, far from Persia, on a Hispano-Moresque bowl of the thirteenth- fourteenth centuries;11 and in Persia, far from the Avestic period, when Tïmürid art had digested it along with other Chinese elements.12 The snake in Avestic religion is sinister and malevolent: “When a serpent is in a jar in which there is wine, both are useless and polluted” ( Shayast la shayast, II, 33). A Persian post-Sassanian attribution is therefore out of the question.
The nearest parallel to the ewer is to be found in the brasswork of south India. Foliate or flamelike decoration in sheet metal combined with round sculptural forms is characteristic of Indian metal-casting.13 In general style a duck-shaped betel-leaf box on a wheeled tray now in the Madras Museum14 comes fairly close: the formalized body, the crest, the spray in the bill, and perhaps even a suggestion of a snake in the tail {Fig. 4). The curious engraved design of the leaves of the Boston piece is very like that on the tail of a bird which surmounts a lamp also in the Madras Museum15 (Fig. 5). The modeling of the snake’s head, however, seems to resemble that of the griffin in the base of the sixth-century Kangra statuette rather than that of a comparable south-Indian piece.16
Moreover, numerous differences suggest themselves that prevent our attributing the Boston piece to south India of the late medieval period which the Madras brasses represent for the most part. None of the numerous birds in the Madras collection shows that peculiar arch gaiety in the attitude and modeling of the head which distinguishes our gander. Where south-Indian modeling is equally vivid, it is vivid in a true Indian way, with a full and “swell- ing” plasticity. The well-known horse from Trichinopoly17 and some equestrian statuettes now
8 See A. S. Beveridge, Eumayun-N ama (London, 1902), p. 174 et passim.
9 E.g., the Paris example, G. Migeon, “L’Orient musulman,” Documents d’art (Paris, 1922), No. 36, and the more mysterious one at Leningrad, J. Orbeli and C. Trever, Orfèvrerie sasanide (Moscow, 1935), p. 80.
10 E.g., Migeon, op. cit., No. 128.
11 Ibid., No. 250.
12 H. Rivière, La céramique dans l’art musulman (Paris, 1913-14), II, PI. 91, is a later example. For a Timurid example, which, though derived from the Far East, shows the snakes being attacked by the more aus- picious lion- and boar-heads, see M. Aga-Oglu, Persian Bookbindings of the Fifteenth Century (Ann Arbor, 1935), Fig. 7.
13 And very old. It is found not only in Khmer bronzes, such as in G. Coedès, “Bronzes Khmers,” Ars. asiat., V (1923), Pis. XXXVI and XXXIX, but in a small example at Taxila, described in Archaeol. Surv. India, Ann. Rept., 1919-20, PI. X, No. 10.
14 E. Thurston, V. Asari, and W. S. Hadaway, Illus- trations of Metal Work in Brass and Copper (Madras, 1913), No. 151.
15 Ibid., No. 133.
16 See Ph. Vogel, “Inscribed Brass Statuette from Fatehpur (Kangra),” Archaeol. Surv. India, Ann. Rept., 1904-5, pp. 107-9, for the southern piece. Thurston, Asari, and Hadaway, op. cit., No. 77.
17 O. C. Gangoly, South Indian Bronzes (Calcutta, 1915), PI. LXXXIII.
AN AQUAMANILE AND SOME IMPLICATIONS
II
in Madras18 are fine examples of the qualities which this gander lacks. The more formalized animal sculptures of south India are without exception more compact, chubbier, and stiffer.19 Nothing like the strange formula for the wing occurs in the south-Indian brasses. A fifteenth- century gander at Tädpatri,20 however, uses it, although in most ways it has little in common with this representation. Again, the formalized leaves of this piece are far less serried21 and proportionally far thinner22 than in comparable south-Indian work. In fact, the tail tree resembles very closely the foliate genitalia of the monster upon a Sassanian plate in the British Museum.23 Nor is anything like the extensive engraved design on the wing to be found on the published southern work which is known to the writer. Early metalwork in the south appears to have been mainly in bronze, and probably no other piece of brass found in India antedates the sixth-century Buddha image found at Kangra, in a region where Sassanian con- tacts24 must have produced a familiarity with brass which we have not adequate reason to assume existed in the south.25 Lacquer being traditionally associated with Moradabad near Delhi, and the added Muhammadan inscription suiting well the supposition that this was found in a Muhammadan state, the Boston ewer may be provisionally assigned to north India and to the period of the Delhi sultanate, and must be accounted the chief representative of the practically unknown metalwork of medieval Muhammadan India.
Minor pieces of evidence consistent with the above attribution are the malachite paste and the use of brass. Malachite paste seems to have disappeared 26 from the stock of materials used by the craftsmen who made the surviving pieces of old household brass; and its presence here helps to refer the piece under discussion to an older or unrepresented period. If it be objected that the brassworkers of the Delhi sultanate cannot have been numerous, since nothing of their work survives, it must be pointed out that within three years of Muhammad ibn Tughluk’s attempt to introduce a forced fiduciary coinage of brass at Delhi imitations
18 Thurston, Asari, and Hadaway, op. cit., Figs. 95-98.
19 Gangoly, op. dt., PI. II, a sixth-century work, has already the characteristic thickset southern look.
20 A. K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indo- nesian Art (London, 1927), Fig. 247.
21 Cf. Gangoly, op. cit., PI. LX.
22 From the scale drawings illustrated in Thurston, Asari, and Hadaway, op. cit., it appears usual for the leaves to be at least 4 or 5 mm. thick. The leaves on the Boston ewer are only about 2 mm. thick.
23 O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus (Lon- don, 1926), No. 210, PI. XL. The “propriety” of the resemblance is particularly marked since this tail tree is an emblem of fertility. It is worth noting that the peacock-like feathers of the tail of the British Museum monster are exactly the same as the plumage of the Boston bird.
24 The ill-known but strong admixture of Persian culture in northwest India was quite old — for example,
the Persian standard for coins replaced both the Attic and old native purana standards in late Hellenistic times in India. Cf. P. Gardner, Catalogue of Indian Coins — Greek and Scythic Kings (London, 1886), pp. lxvii-lxviii.
25 The south Indians had to import brass in Roman times, and the costliness of metal must have restricted its use. Base metal was used for coins in the south. For the Roman attempt to improve the northern trade route which worked, together with the unification of the Yueh- Chi dominions, to isolate and restrict trade (and the influences which it brings) in the south, see E. H. War- mington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 267 and 291.
26 1 owe this information to Dr. Coomaraswamy. Green stones are used in India, but they appear to be the yellower Chrysoprase or the darker jasper. In any case the paste is unusual. Malachite was found near Tüs in Khurasan. Cf. Warmington, op. cit., pp. 242-43; and G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1930), p. 389.
12
ERIC SCHROEDER
were so innumerable that the Sultan was obliged to take up the whole issue, forgeries and all, at its face value in silver, in the year 732 h. (1332 a.d.).27
Two minor pieces, apparently from Rajputana or the northwest, and close in style to the south-Indian animal brasses at Madras, have been published. They appear to date from some period more immediately preceding the Mughal conquest {Fig. 6).2S
If the Boston piece is peculiarly conclusive in its Indian character, it may perhaps serve as a point of vantage from which to observe certain other pieces. One of the best-known post- Sassanian pieces is the Bobrinsky ewer in the Hermitage Museum. It, along with the Boston goose, presents a sharp contrast to that series of Sassanian and post-Sassanian pieces which may be termed purely Iranian.
A steady evolution of style may be traced, for instance, in the following works: the British Museum griffin from the Helmund,29 the throne-leg in the Rabenou collection,30 the gander from Daghistan in the Hermitage,31 the Bobrinsky horse,32 the Bobrinsky cock,33 the Bobrinsky lion34 (all in the Hermitage). The whole progressively abstract series is unmis- takably Iranian in character, and the two ewers stand outside the series, both closer to one another than to any member of it.
The Bobrinsky gander has, like the Boston bird, many resemblances to south-Indian metalwork. Its general air of stiff rotundity is close to the latter style. The modeling of the head,35 the cere, the “eyebrow,” 36 and the crest37 can be exactly paralleled in India. The em- bossed crooks in the tail are characteristically Indian,38 and have no parallel in Persian metal {Fig. 5). The form and engraving of the “leaves” in the outer part of the tail is as character- istic of Indian work39 as the joining of the tips,40 although no precise parallel for such leaves so joined occurs. The flattened leg, again, is Indian {Fig. 7), 41 and the accumulation of these resemblances must weigh heavily against the uniqueness which has distinguished the famous and mysterious brass. It seems possible in view of the saddle-like plate over the bird’s back that a figure of Brahma, the gander-rider par excellence, or of his consort, Sarasvati, once graced the ewer, and that the handle was originally fixed to his shoulder. If this were so,42 the thing was, of course, hardly Muhammadan. Its resemblances to the south-Indian work being
27 S. Lane Poole, op. cit., pp. xxi-xxii.
28 O. C. Gangoly, “A Collection of Indian Brasses and Bronzes,” Ritpam, 1927, No. 31, p. 82; and two small birds on Fig. D.
29 O. M. Dalton, op. cit., PL 194.
30 Souvenir of the Exhibition of Persian Art (Lon- don, 1931), p. 8, No. 11.
31 Orbeli and Trever, op. cit., Pi. 80.
32 Ibid., PI. 84.
33 Ibid., PI. 82.
34 F. Sarre and F. R. Martin, Meisterwerke Muham- madanischer Kunst (Munich, 1912), Taf. 152.
35 The modeling seems to be that prescribed in the Rupäväliya, “The Hamsa has .... a fishlike face.” Cf. A. K. Coomaraswamy, Mediaeval Sinhalese Art, p. 86.
36 Cf. Thurston, Asari, and Hadaway, op. cit., Figs. 135 A, and 141.
37 The crest of the Bobrinsky bird is cast in just the same form as the tail of a south-Indian brass bird in the Boston Museum. Cf. Catalogue No. 21.1311, illus. in A. K. Coomaraswamy, Catalogue of the Indian Collections (Boston, 1923), PI. LXXI.
38 Thurston, Asari, and Hadaway, op. cit., Figs. 126 and 133.
39 Ibid., Fig. 137, the formula for the lion’s mask.
40 Ibid., Figs. 31 and 114.
41 Ibid., Fig. 141.
42 This seems hardly likely, in view of the engrav- ing upon even that part of the “saddle” which would be covered by the rider’s leg. Unless the Bobrinsky ewer was originally cast smooth, and the engraving was added after the piece had found its way to the Caucasus, the rider may be taken to be out of the question.
Fig. 3 — The ‘'Bobrinsky” Gander Ewer Leningrad, Hermitage Museum
From Gangoly
Fig. 6 — -Brasses from Northwest India Later Medieval Period
„ ,17 . „ Fig. q — Stucco Carving from Rayy, Buwayhid
Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery y ’
or Seldjuk
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
<
h-}
in
in
<
«
PQ
£
<
3
&
6 h- 1
Uh
t>
w
CD
U
H
£
W
<\
'A
«
W
>
o
O
in
<
n
<
§
10 <5
O
Uh
AN AQUAMANILE AND SOME IMPLICATIONS
IS
slightly remoter in some details than those of the Boston piece, the Bobrinsky ewer may per- haps be referred to an earlier period, the Ghorid or intermediate times as appropriate as any, though a large number of pigeonholes lie conveniently empty.
A third piece of medieval Indian work which may be assigned to the northern states is a small hanging lamp in the Walters Gallery at Baltimore (Fig. 8).
The view has been expressed that such works, “off the beaten tracks of classical and canonical Indian sculpture,” represent “pre-Aryan fetishes and idols” in “a vernacular plastic language.”43 But the gander, as will be shown, bears every mark of character and kinship which would prove it an Aryan symbol rather than a pre-Aryan fetish; 44 and we are at liberty to ask whether the ewer is not conceived in an Aryan vernacular.
The highly stylized appearance of Persian-Islamic animal sculpture is no doubt due in part to the influence of Islam itself — to the reluctance to make animal forms with too great an air of natural and realistic life. But perhaps in an even greater degree Islam afforded release to an old instinct which had suffered much alteration by successive infusions of West- ern influence. The native impulse of the Iranian artist was probably always to create, in animal representation, a universal type, however slavishly he imitated an opposite mode. “As we contemplate the more realistic examples of Sassanian sculpture, we seem to feel the presence of an indigenous and hostile element always awaiting its hour.”45 And the same characteristic Aryan feeling has impressed a subtle critic of Indian art: “The Aryan invaders were reluctant to give shape to their work in the likeness of things.”46 The creation of uni- versal types by a high degree of stylization, often on the very edge of heraldic vacuity, is well exemplified on the pedestal of the Kangra brass Buddha mentioned above. The griffins might have been made in thirteenth-century Daghistan; their extraordinary heads are identical in form with those of a stucco griffin at Bamiyan47 and a Persian (?) hawk now in Berlin.48 Such a factor gave to the complex classical art of India much of what nervous and abstract vitality it possessed ; and perhaps continual influx of northern blood may have contributed to the gradual disappearance of plastic realism during the whole evolution of medieval Indian sculpture.
One of the chief difficulties of the proposed attribution for the two gander ewers is their abstract quality, in strong contrast with the “Indianness” of what would be contemporary stonework. In this connection it is most interesting that the brassworker’s caste in northern India enjoys higher consideration than the same caste in the south, and preserves a tradition
43 Gangoly, op. cit., pp. 80-81.
44 Not only is the gander (represented here and in the collection from Rajputana) absent from the animal art of the old Indus Valley, but its place in the belief of the Aryans is assured in the Vedas, as well as in the art of the most northerly reaches of Indian influence. Cf. the curious representation of either Jatakas or Maz- daean cults on a bowl in the British Museum, illus. in Dalton, op. cit., PI. XXXII. The objects venerated on this piece appear to be a gander, a hare, a tree, and perhaps fire (though I cannot find a parallel representa-
tion of that sacred element; the curling form in the left-hand medallion may therefore be another tree).
45 Dalton, op. cit., p. lxxi.
46 Stella Kramrisch, Indian Sculpture (Calcutta, 1933), pp. 15-16.
47 J. Hackin and J. Carl, Nouvelles recherches ar- chéologiques à Bämiyän (Paris, 1933), Fig. 93.
48 K. Erdmann, op. cit., abb. 17. This hawk may be Indian, in my opinion, in spite of its resemblance to the Munich stag apparently signed by a Basra artist.
i6
ERIC SCHROEDER
of Banyä origin.4y This implies derivation from the Hüna Rajputs (Ephthalites) who entered India as multitudinous conquerors from the north in the fifth and sixth centuries.50 North- and west-Indian brasswork may therefore be considered as affected, if not permeated, by the stylizing vision of Central Asian art — and the anomaly disappears. Here perhaps is also an inherited factor in the success with which Mughal brassworkers imitated Persian forms.
So much of the known art of the Indian Middle Ages is hieratic, and as such powerfully curbed by the iconography of Buddhism and Brahmanism, that it is difficult to realize how large a part of the daily (or religious) life of western India was suffused with “Mazdaean” belief and its characteristic iconography.51 Of that belief our ewer is a rich expression.
The diving bird, gander, goose, duck, or swan is iconographically a single creature, and may be conveniently referred to under his Indian name of hansa, or the etymologically corresponding English gander.
Neither the metaphysical concept nor its representation here are (except for the presence of the snake) specifically Indian.52 The gander is a familiar and auspicious Sassanian decora- tion, and his descendants range over the surfaces of art in Armenia, Italy, Sicily, China, Egypt, and Rhodes. These descendants are swans, sometimes, or even peacocks,55 for the human propensity to prefer showy substitutes for the divine hawk or gander, to “call Leda’s goose a swan,” as soon as their religious meaning has become less powerful,54 is particularly strong among the “civilized” nations of Europe and Asia. The last great recognition of the divinity of the gander was probably the placing of a goose and a goat at the head of the first Crusade.55
As to the representation of the gander here, his foliate tail can be found upon a relief from Sorrento,56 the spray in his bill can be found in medieval Persian pottery,57 and even, in a very close parallel, on the body of a ninth- or tenth-century ewer from the Malay Peninsula, which has also a serpent mouth.58
49 Sir A. Baines, “Ethnography,” Grundriss der indo-arischen Philol. (Strassburg, 1912), p. 61.
50 Ibid., p. 33.
51 Rabindranath Tagore has collected what could justly be called Mazdaean drawings made by modern Bengali women. The term is used in its wide sense, which we owe to the suggestive labors of Josef Strzy- gowski. These drawings were published by the Indian Publishing House, Calcutta, n.d. How much more purely Mazdaean the life of western India was may be inferred from the fact that India proper only began east of the five rivers in early medieval times.
52 Jane Ellen Harrison has observed, “Any bird or beast or fish, if he be good for food, or if in any way he arrest man’s attention as fearful or wonderful, may become sacred, that is, may be held to be charged with a special mana; but, of all living creatures, birds longest keep their sanctity,” Themis (Cambridge, 1927), p. 113. At least the fact noted in the latter part of this sentence is significant. For the western survival of the water bird, see ibid., pp. 116 and 207.
53 The gander of the Goyo Kokuzo at the Toji Monastery at Kanchiin shows the very moment of trans- formation, and seems already half a peacock. Japanese Temples and Their Treasures (Tokyo, 1910), I, 128, and II, PI. 253. Peacocks are of course common in the later art of India and Burma.
54 W. H. Goodyear, T he Grammar of the Lotus (London, 1891), pp. 270-71 and 275.
55 0. Keller, Thiere des classischen Alterthums in cultur his torischer Beziehung, p. 298; quot. by Good- year, op. cit., p. 272.
56 J. Strzygowski, Asiens bildende Kunst (Augsburg, 1930), p. 304-
57 An early example was found at Susa. See R. Koechlin, Les céramiques musulmanes de Suse (Paris, 1928), No. 32 B. In metal, cf. the Sassanian bowl at Leningrad, illus. by Orbeli and Trever, op. cit., No. 29.
58 A. Salmony, “Asiatische Kunst,” Catalogue of the Cologne IÇ26 Exhibition, PI. 6.
AN AQUAMANILE AND SOME IMPLICATIONS
17
The Avestic concept of the gander is called the Karshipt. As usual, Pahlavi writings curdle the ingredients which Vedic authorities blend; but it is sufficiently evident that the Persians inherited, even if they did not comprehend, the same metaphysical gander as the pest of the Indo- Aryan race. Such metaphysical beings have, of course, two aspects: as they perhaps first appeared to the primitive mind, and as they were understood later by meta- physicians, to whom the mystic bird or beast opened the way into infinite godhead. A third stage is their “winter, too, of pale misfeature” when political or religious history has diverted or obliterated the only intelligences capable of understanding and transmitting the meaning of the creature.
Alone among created things, the diving bird goes from the top of the universe to the bottom.59 “He, putting all the gods in his breast, goes, viewing together all existences.”60 In this way he is a sun bird:61 the sun is conceived as a gander which circles the universe, flying round its upper bounds, diving into the refreshing ocean, and swimming through the nether waters to the appointed place of its rising: “This indeed is the fire which has entered into the ocean; only by knowing him does one pass over death.”62 How widely distributed this idea was in the ancient world is indicated by the detailed representation of the sun gander both rising and swimming on an archaic cylinder.63 Apollo’s bird was a gander at Daphne and in Delos.64 The gander, however, was not the only sun bird: an eagle or eagle-griffin appears to be equally venerable, both in Vedic and Avestic belief. With a characteristically Persian con- fusion, the Bundahish tells us that “first of birds, the Simurgh (griffin of three natures) was created, not for this world, since here the Karshipt is chief, which they call the falcon.”65 Fortunately the Karshipt is known to be a water bird from other texts;66 and he is described as receiving the true religion with human words67 (the petty Zoroastrian relic of the old belief in his power to communicate divine wisdom to the priest-magician)68 and as scattering seeds
59 For this reason, the comparison used in Rig-Veda, III.8.9, is particularly pointed. There the apotheosis of the divine sacrificial pillar is described as extending heav- enward “like geese strung out in a row.”
60 Atharva-Veda, X.8.18.
61 And therefore the usual emblem for the ornamen- tation of lamps. Such lamps are mentioned by V. Kana- kasabhai, The Tamils 1800 Years Ago (Madras, 1904), p. 38, as having been made in India in early times. A good old example is shown by Thurston, Asari, and Hadaway, op. cit., Fig. 118, where the two birds of light are represented as feeding on the waters which are the source or resting place of light in legend. See footnote 86 infra.
62 Svetäsvatära Upanishad, 6.15. (V.S. 31.8).
63 0. Weber, Orientalische Siegelbilder (Leipzig, 1920), abb. 566.
64 Goodyear, op. cit., p. 273; Harrison, op. cit., p. 1 16. Apollo, in the form of a bird, such as a swan or gull, was said to guide emigrants. He came to Delphi in a chariot drawn by swans from the land of the Hyper- boreans. Cf. C. Schuster, “Motives in Western Chinese Folk Embroideries,” Monumenta Serica, II (1936-37), Fase, i, 40. Dr. Schuster’s learned and interesting treat-
ment of the gander should be studied. It contains much material which I have not referred to, not because it is unimportant, but because my object has been to make the ideas behind the representation of the gander as clear as possible, and therefore in a sense to offer as little material as would serve that purpose.
65 Bundahish, XXIV. 11. This is an interesting par- allel with the foot or quarter of the sixteen-fold Brah- man communicated by the Magdu or diving bird: “He who knows this becomes possessed of a home in this world.” Chändogya Upanishad, quoted by Schuster, op. cit., p. 40.
66 Zad-Sparam, XXII . 4.
67 Bundahish, XIX. 16, and Zad-Sparam, XXII. 4.
68 E. W. Hopkins, “Epic Mythology,” Grundriss der indo-arischen Philol. (Strassburg, 1915), p. 67. The sacred geese of the Capitol at Rome are a more familiar, the duck guide of the Zuni Indian ancestral hero a more recondite, example. The latter had human speech when decked with a string of shells (cf. the pearl necklaces of the Sassanian and Indian ganders). Hansas are stated to be golden when gifted with speech in the Mahabha- rata (III. 53.19).
i8
ERIC SCHROEDER
from the Tree of Many Seeds in the Waters from which the angel Tistar gathers water for rain, so that grass and all good plants grow up after the fall of divine moisture. As the Great Bird of this world he is ideologically coeval with the Great Bird of Heaven, the griffin, eagle, or falcon. In Avestic cosmogony they are relegated to a minor role and a subordinate period — ■ whereas to the shaman the original God and man in the beginning floated on the waters like two black ganders;69 in the Persian the primal role was allotted to the bull.70
The concept is much richer in Indian literature. The confused text from the Bundahish may at any rate serve to indicate that a notion of the gander as immanent godhead and of the eagle as transcendent godhead was at one time common to the Aryan races, but the idea emerges clearly in Vedic texts. The gander is the spirit (in us); the eagle is the Spirit. For this reason the gander is the guide to all wandering things — to the nomad in the waste, to the man in this world, to the soul turned loose by death — and the eagle is that to or through which he re-enters eternity. Perhaps this is the meaning of the common theme of religious art, the destruction of a gander by an eagle, which is represented on the church of Achthamar in Armenia71 and upon a pillar in Assam.72 Such a meaning — the annihilation of the individual soul in the infinite — was probably long forgotten when Buwayhid or Seldjük carvers worked it on the walls of a palace at Rayy.73
The most beautiful description of these birds is in the Rig-Veda: “ Two fair-winged crea- tures, united, loving, cling to one Tree, on whose sweet fruit the one feeds, while the other, eating nothing, watches only.” 74 The “Tree” is, of course, the Tree of Creation, in the midst of the waters.75 As the human spirit, the gander “flutters about thinking that itself and the Actuator are different; but when favoured by Him it attains immortality.” 76 This doctrine, that the human spirit and the Infinite Spirit are one, is, if any one doctrine is, the central doctrine of the Vedas.
69 H. M. Casanowicz, “Shamanism of the Natives of Siberia,” Smithson. Rept., 1924, p. 416.
70 Bundahish, IV. An account of the primal bull and his function has been given by P. Ackermann, “Some Indo-Iranian Motives in Sasanian Art,” Indian Art and Letters (London, 1937), XI, No. 1, 35.
71 J. Strzygowski, op. cit., p. 341.
72 T. Bloch, “Conservation in Assam,” Archaeol. Surv. India Ann. Rept., 1906-7, Fig. 8.
73 The Rayy plaque has been published in the Bull. Boston Mus. Fine Arts (Aug., 1935). For an icono- graphically identical Muhammadan version of the anni- hilation of the pearled gander by the hawk in the Berlin Museum, see Glück and Diez, op. cit., p. 489.
A very conclusive proof of the special significance of this symbol is its occurrence in a series of transforma- tions which calls for not a hawk but a drake. In the ballad of the coal-black smith, as the female in order to sever herself from the male assumes one female animal form after another, the male assumes the male form of the species, but when “she became a duck, he became a hawk.” This preserves unconsciously but precisely the copulative significance of annihilation, as it is preserved
in Vedic symbolism: “the Sun is the Eater; His dues are the Moon” ( Satapatha Brähmana, X.6.2.3) and, “there is indeed this couple: the Eater and the Edible. When this pair is joined (i.e., sexually) then it is called the Eater and not the Edible” {ibid., X.6.2.1). The hawk, eagle, or transcendent sun bird destroys the iden- tity of the spirit in this world (which, as we have seen, is the gander) as soon as the latter attains union with it, just as the ocean destroys the identity of a drop of water in the moment that the latter enters it. This crea- tion is conceived as fearing and fleeing God, so that it is “pursued” by the godhead in which inevitably its separa- tion must end.
74 Rig-Veda, 1. 164. 20.
75 The two birds on the tree are another classic
motive in Oriental decoration: in the representations of Oriental animal carpets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italian paintings, this motive appears to be more common than any other. K. Erdmann, “Orienta- lische Tierteppiche auf Bildern des XIV und XV Jahr- hunderts,” Jahrb. preusz. Kunstsamml., 50 (1929),
272-73.
76 Évetâévatâra Upanishad, 1.6.
AN AQUAMANILE AND SOME IMPLICATIONS
19
And so the gander, whose neck curved upon its breast or laid back upon its shoulder is so clear an image of the brooding soul,77 is the bird which re-enters itself and the bird which re-enters the Waters of Potentiality from which the universe proceeded. But it is the same gander whose unerring migratory instinct, strange cry, and loneliness above other birds sug- gested and expressed supernatural knowledge to ruder generations in the northern steppes, and the same diver whose eternal rejuvenation in the ocean equated him with the sun. I well remember the thrill of awe with which, while passing through a lonely valley on the northern side of the Hindu Kush, I saw a string of geese flying fast south, and so high overhead in the evening sky that they became visible as black spots only when their wings spread; as their wings folded rhythmically in flight they disappeared from view.
As Guide, the gander is a psychopompos for ascetics in the Indian epic period.78 It is as such in a high sense that he must be conceived in the verse “only by knowing Him does one pass over death,” and as such that he appears in one of the most mysterious and beautiful of English nursery rhymes:
Gray goose and gander Waft your wings together,
And carry the Good King’s daughter Over the one-strand river.
The iconography of the ewer, however, cannot be fully understood without a considera- tion of the serpent spout which issues from the gander’s breast.79 The Vedic doctrine of the serpent80 is that of “nonproceeding, unmanifested godhead, dwelling in darkness,” a subterra- neous reptile who restrains, and again looses, the Rivers of Life. The snake in Indian folk belief is essentially the guardian and giver of wealth, water, and children — who withholds and bestows.81 By definition serpents are in their restrictive capacity non- Aryan; but by creeping further, or by suffering division or transformation they become Aryan, or cross over to the sunny side of the universe.82 In this connection it is curious, though perhaps not more than a coincidence, that the serpent of the ewer is divided, Vrtra-like; and the “transforma- tion” of the serpent, the mark of the agathodaemon, is evident in the little winglike leaves on the spout and handle, always emblematic of growth and generation. The serpent, moreover, is a well-known symbol of continuation and eternity. In the ewer he suggests inexhaustible
77 The imagery is very explicitly explained in the Maitri Upanishad, VI. 34:
The sacrificer seizes the oblation and meditates: “The gold-colored Bird abides in the heart, and in the Sun — a Diver Bird, a Hamsa, strong in splendor; Him we worship in the Fire.” Having recited the verse, he discovers its meaning: namely, the adorable splendor of the sun is to be meditated on by him who, abiding within his mind, meditates thereon. Here he attains the place of rest for the mind; he holds it within his own self.
78 E. W. Hopkins, op. cit., pp. 109, 160. There may be some unconscious memory of the gander as psycho- pompos or guide in Grimm’s story of the golden goose, where anyone who touches the person carrying the goose
is caught and obliged to follow.
79 This symbol should be compared with that of the serpent-headed bird, in R. Narasimhachar’s, “Inscrip- tions at Sravana Belgola,” Epigraphica Carnatica, II (1923), PI. XXVI.
80 A. K. Coomaraswamy, “The Darker Side of Dawn,” Smithson. Mise. Coll., XCIV (1935), No. 1, 2 ff.
81 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (London, 1935), II, 160-61; V, 81; VIII, 316-17.
82 Coomaraswamy, loc. cit., and “Angel and Titan,” Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc., LV (1935), No. 4, 385 and 392, note 24.
20
ERIC SCHROEDER
fullness in the same way as the gander, in folklore a type of discrimination83 and magically effective against contamination,84 suggests purity. Serpent worship being particularly wide- spread in the Punjab, it is possible that we should assign to that region this puzzling com- pound of Aryan and non-Aryan ideas. In the ancient Aryan religious system, as in many early faiths, religiousness, well-being, and fertility were conceived as mutually dependent states. Heedlessness, crime, or death menaced the very renewal of natural growth. It is by a specifically converted equation that the representation of simple vegetable life becomes the almost universal auspicious decoration of Aryan utensils.
Two more details remain to be noticed. Round the neck of the gander are strings of pearls. In Indian fable pearls are connected with serpents in the fable of Nagarjuna, who during her stay in the nether world received from Vasuki, the King of the Serpents, pearls bom of the tears of the moon god, which were sovereign against poisons.85 This appears to be a west-Himalayan correspondence with the Manichaean story86 of the origin of the pearl: it was a form of the invisible divine glory hatched under the sea by the divine diving bird, Zerahav (Zir-i-av “underwater”?). As a manifestation of this glory, pearls were the charac- teristic decoration of the Sassanian kings of Persia,87 were taken over along with other attri- butes of divine kingship by the Byzantines, survived in like fashion in the decorative arts of Islam, and through the imitation of Islamic fabrics rolled all over the textiles of the European Middle Ages. The form in which this legend survived in India is connected with the Asvins, who rode in a swan-drawn car, and were originally conceived as restoring or rescuing the vanished light of the sun.88
The spray in the mouth of the gander presumably represents its feeding upon the Tree of Life, mentioned in the verse quoted on page 18. This ancient89 and zoologically somewhat inappropriate idea survives into Buddhist art;90 but the human critic has a natural reluctance91 to identify as a gander a gander which is perching on a tree. The spray appears by analogy with the tail tree92 to be a lotus, formalized beyond recognition.
83 As the bird of Svarga Loka, it is able to drink the milk only from a vessel of milk mixed with water. Coo- maraswamy, Mediaeval Sinhalese Art, p. 85.
84 The idea that the contamination of drinking vessels by menstruous women can be avoided by obliging the latter to suck their drink up through the bone of a swan, goose, or crane is common to many North American Indian tribes. Fraser, op. cit., X, 49, 50, and 90.
85 See Ph. Vogel, Indian Serpent Lore (London, 1926), p. 18.
86 Schuster, op. cit., p. 38.
87 The survival of the belief in the magic virtue of the pearl in the Caucasus is reported by J. Orbeli. For
the ritual filling of a pearl-decorated ewer which still takes place in Armenia, see Ackermann, op. cit., pp. 35-36.
88 A. A. Macdonell, “Vedic Mythology,” Grundriss der indo-arischen Philol. (Strassburg, 1897), pp. 49-51.
89 Cf. footnote 74.
90 Ch. Duroiselle, “Pictorial Representations of Juta- kas in Burma,” Archaeol. Surv. India Ann. Rept., 1912- 13, PI. LVIII, Fig. 46.
91 Ibid., p. 113.
92 For earlier and more realistic representations of the spray, cf. a tile from Harichand Raz, Archaeol. Surv. India Ann. Rept., 1918-19, PI. II A.
THE WOOD MIMBAR IN THE MASDJID-I DJAMT, NAIN BY MYRON BEMENT SMITH
Although the carved gac revetment and the plan of the masdjid-i djâmiV nâïn,2 are known through several publications,3 its splendid wood mimbar, dated 71 1 h., has yet to be studied. As Iranian Islamic woodwork of art-historical interest is comparatively rare, a descrip- tion of this example may be welcomed.
The Nâïn mimbar (Fig. 1 ) is of medium size4 and canonical in form.5 It consists of a flight of eight steps, the top one being a railed seat under a decorative canopy. The lowest of the steps is entered through a light architrave, the lintel of which is a deep panel (Fig. 2). Stairs and platform are guarded by a grilled balustrade. The material is the densely grained dirakht-i ‘anäb,6 one of the few woods which resist the ravages of insects. Save for the soft patina given by the touch of many hands it is without finish. The mimbar is itself a venerated object, the rite consisting of tying bits of cloth to the wood, or entering the space beneath the steps by the low door near the mihrab and there lighting castor oil lamps, a practice which may account for more than one lost mimbar. Fortunate in escaping fire, it has suffered from pillage. The townsmen say that about 1932 the small access door was taken.7 From time to
1 This designation is given in an undated, naskhi in- scription cut in a late Safawid wood kursi (in this instance a low, hexagonal table with slots in the top to hold a Kur’än in many volumes). The language is Persian. The translation: (1) Has given [as wakf] the master Käzim Nadjär [carpenter] (2) son of the master Käzim, son of Kamâl al-Dïn Husain (3) this kursi to the Masdjid-i Diämi1 of the city (4) of Nâ’ïn .... [rest of this line and lines 5 and 6 are religious formulae]. I am indebted to Türän Khänum of Isfahan for reading this inscription from my photographs, negatives Nos. L56.14, -16, -18, -20, -22, and -25.
2 This is the modem spelling, also thus by Mukaddasi,
Kitäb-i Ahsan al-Takäsim fï M'arafat al-Akâlïm, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leyden, 1906), p. 51, 1. 16; also thus by Hamd Allah Mustawfï Kazwïnï, The Geographical Part of the N uzhat-al-Qulüb , ed. G. Le Strange, “Gibb Series,” (London, 1915), XXIIL, 74 (text); but also Nä’in and Nä’in, cf. P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter .... (Leipzig, 1925), V, 659 and note 20, quoting Yacut’s Geographisches Wörterbuch, ed. F. Wüstenfeld (Leipzig, 1924), C8, 242, 15 and C8, 242, 21; also C. Barbier de Meynard, Diction- naire géographique de la Perse (Paris, 1861), p. 561,
for the same variants; see also preceding note and Inscr. I-3 infra.
3 The mosque was visited March 19, 1912, by H. Viollet and J. de Moustier; the results were published by Viollet and the late S. Flury, “Un monument des premiers siècles de l’hégire en Perse,” Syria, II (1921), 226-34, 305-16. Viollet’s sketch plan is essentially accu- rate. During Nov. 9-10 of 1913, E. Diez and 0. von
Niedermayer were in Nain, but were unable to study inside the building, cf. E. Diez and M. von Berchem, Churasanische Baudenkmäler (Berlin, 1918), p. 34. In 1929, A. U. Pope made photographs of the gac, which were utilized by S. Flury in his second publication, “La mosquée de Naÿin,” Syria, XI (1930), 43-58. In 1932 the plan was measured by E. Schroeder (as yet unpub- lished). In October, 1934, A. Godard exhibited in Tehe- ran his own measured plan, which he kindly permitted me to publish first in my “Material for a Corpus of Early Iranian Islamic Architecture, I, Masdjid-i Djum'a, De- mäwend,” Ars Islamica, II (1935), Pt. 2, Fig. 29. Cf. A. Godard, “Les anciennes mosquées de l’Iran,” Athâr-é Iran, I (1936), Pt. 2, Figs. 130, 131; also his “Le Tari Khana de Damghan,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XII (1934), No. 862, Figs. 9-1 1; and E. Diez, “Masdjid,” Encycl. of Islam, p. 387; also his Persien (Hagen, 1923), pp. 48, 124-25; also A. U, Pope, Introduction to Persian Art (London, 1930), Fig. 11, and p. 39.
4 The dimensions are width, 105 cm.; depth, 319 cm.; height, 522 cm.
5 Cf. E. Diez, “Minbar,” Encycl. of Islam; cf. the following mimbars: London, Victoria and Albert Museum (from Cairo, Mosque of Sultan Kä’itbey) ; Mashhad, Masdjid-i Djawhär Shad; Jerusalem, al-Aksä Mosque (from Aleppo); Cairo, Mosques of Sultan Hasan, Ah- mad ibn Tülün, Mu’aiyad, etc.
6 The jujube — not found in Nâïn, but I have noticed it in Isfahan gardens.
7 It has not yet been recovered. It is for an opening 54.5 cm. wide by 75 cm. high.
22
MYRON B. SMITH
time many of the mimbar panels have disappeared, mostly from the left side, where a total of twenty-two rectangular panels are missing,8 eighteen of which have been replaced by modern work. This side also has two triangular panels which are not original, as well as three new rails.9 Except that the right side shows one small replaced panel, and from the upper rear wall of the canopy nine raised panels are lost, the monument is substantially intact. The construc- tion is solid. The assembly is contrived with wood pins, save for the steps, which are held by iron nails.
The inscriptions10 are: on the left side, two lines of naskhl consisting of the wakf with date {Fig. j); on the right, one line of nasWu comprising the signatures of the carpenter and the calligrapher {Fig. 4) ; on the front panel, a naskhi line from the Kur’än {Fig. 2) ; and two short religious formulae in naskhl, one on each colonette capital {Fig. 6).
The paneling of the sides is in two divisions, an upright rectangular field directly below the platform and a triangular one below the stairs. It is noticeable that the panel composi- tions of these fields are in no way related. The underlying figures of the stair balustrade are groups of four octagons tangent at apices and enclosing a star of four points.11 The canopy openings are stilted, ogee-horseshoe, arched profiles. The front arch rests on vase-and-crescent colonettes with rectangular impost-capitals. Each arch spandrel is accented with a disk. The elaborate cornice is composed of doubled brackets profiled as half the pointed, multifoil arches which pierce the intervening panels. The railing surmounting the cornice was never carried across the back nor farther along on the right than necessary to pass out of sight behind the masonry arch. Raised panels occur in four places: on the lintel of the stair entrance {Figs. 2, 13, and 15) ; below the canopy cornice {Fig. 7) ; in a corresponding position within the canopy on the far side; and around the small access door {Fig. 14). The carving of these panels is deep and straight to a dark, flat background {tiefenschatten). The tendril profiles are salient, double bevels. The other panels, rails, and stiles are in a shallow schrägschnitt {Figs. 4, 5, and 12).
Although the field library at hand does not permit a comparative study of the ornament, certain other woodwork in Nain and in nearby Muhammadiyyah12 may be conveniently men- tioned with the mimbar as material for future discussion. In this same mosque is a pair of doors {Figs. 8, 9, and 10) dated 874 h. by an inscription panel that was taken13 at the same
8 The top triangular panel which is missing in Figure i and an upright panel which is missing in Figure 3 (photographed Feb. 19, 1935) were again in place at the time of my last visit, Feb. 17, 1937.
9 These can be easily distinguished, cf. Figure 5.
10 Here I wish to record my gratitude to Professor Paul Wittek of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, for his kindness in making the epigraphical study of these inscriptions and of certain others, and at the same time to absolve him from any errors in the readings in my footnotes, as circumstances made it impossible to submit all the inscriptions to him.
11 The eight-rayed shamsa (sun picture) motif. For discussion of the general type of geometric interlaced decoration utilized for the raised panels, see E. Herzfeld,
in Sarre-Herzfeld, Archaeol. Reise .... (Berlin, 1920), II, 255 ff., with bibliography.
12 Mentioned by A. F. Stahl, “Reisen in Nord- und Zentral-Persien,” Petermanns Mitteil., 1895, offprint, No. 118, p. 27; evidently the “remains of an old town in the vicinity [of Nain],” noticed by A. V. W. Jackson, Persia Past and Present (New York, 1906), p. 416.
13 This panel (Fig. 8) was later recovered and placed in the new Teheran Museum; in 1934 its mate (Fig. 9) was taken to that museum for safekeeping. The panel openings are 24.5 cm. high by 61.5 cm. long. The doors are 250 cm. high; the left one is 104 cm. wide; the wood is said to be walnut (gardü). I wish to record my thanks to A. Godard, Director General of the Iranian Archaeo- logical Service, for the negatives of Figures 8 and 9.
Photograph, M. B. Smith, Neg. 594
Fig. i — Näin, Masdjid-i Djämi1, Mimbar
Photograph, M. B. Smith, Neg. 606
Fig. 3
Nâïn, Masdjid-i D fÄMi‘. Mimbar Panels
Photograph, M. B. Smith, Neg. 601
Fig. 4
Photograph, M. B. Smith, Neg. 608
Fig. 5
NäIn, Masdj;id-i Dtami‘. Mimbar Panels, Left Side
H H
g £
w O
• « C9 pxn
S h
» <
s
THE WOOD MIMBAR IN THE MASD1ID-I DJÄMI1, NÂÏN
27
time as was the mimbar door. The doors are badly damaged, with most of the carving weath- ered away.14 The undistinguished, low-relief carving appears to be a debased derivative from that of the side panels of the mimbar.
In the Masdjid-i Bäbä ‘Abd Allah in Nâïn is a wood inscription panel {Fig. 18), 15 dated 700 h., which appears to be the foundation document for the mosque.16 The carving of the frame is in a technique that has been observed on the Djämk mimbar. The naskhi background is a spirited arabesque with tendrils ending in tight curls.
Before leaving Nâïn, a pair of doors on the Masdjid-i Khwädja may be noted. These are evidently late Safawid, and, although not outstanding, are well carved, with ornament distrib- uted as on certain bookbindings of that period. Other than a short kufic formula, the inscrip- tions are the “Profession of the Faith” and a Sha‘ia’ formula, both in a splendid naskhi.
Going on to Muhammadiyyah, the oldest example of woodwork in this geographical group is the mimbar in the Masdjid-i Djämi‘, a monument which I have given summary publi- cation elsewhere.17 On this same mosque is a pair of doors, undecorated but for moldings, and an inscription in two panels.18
On the Imämzädah Shaikh Dain al-din, Muhammadiyyah, is a pair of simple doors inscribed with the date 1057 h.
14 The projecting, ornamental nailheads recall those on Italian medieval doors; cf. my “Nail Studded Doors from North Italy,” Arch. Record, LXVII (1930), 544- 5,; LXVIII (,£). ,6,-74.
15 It was outside the building over the entrance until twelve years ago when it was set into the mihrab niche. The actual panel is 42.5 cm. high by 81 cm. long.
16 Six lines of naskhi script; some diacritical marks; unvocalized. The language is Arabic. End of line 1 : last word partially destroyed; end of line 2: end of
defaced, one word (?) missing, beginning of defaced; line 3: partially defaced at end, but
legible.
jJuai ! I IJa U> (1)
£ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ jî>tj 1
♦ ♦♦ <jyji-yi ^ > j* jSfziA jjifyij jj-ua! (r)
ahi* J jlaj aU1 (d)
<Cj« aX) l JJTj
alJl j4£> ~o*jC- ^ VI ^ JÀl I y* A) lc-1 J
Ä»b» j» Jl
Translation: “(1) Has ordered the building of this blessed masdjid, the great chief, the [....] (2) of the chiefs and nobles, the glory of ‘Irak, he who is laudable
of nature, [ ] of the state (3) and of the religion,
the majesty of Islam and of the Muslims, trustee of kings and sovereigns (4) Muhammad, son of the late Shams al-din, son of (a)bi-‘ Abdallah, son of Muhammad, son of (a)bi- (5) ‘Abdallah, son of (a)bï-al-Kâsim, son of ‘All, may Allah let him enjoy length of life, and may Allah accept [it] from him, and help him on the day of the Greatest Fear [i.e., the day of judgment]. Written on the first day of the sacred month of Allah [Muhar- ram], of the year seven hundred [September 16, 1300
A.D.] .”
I am indebted to George C. Miles for checking the reading. This inscription therefore would make another, dated Rabl1 I, 737 h., painted on the gac frieze under the squinches, be for the painted decoration; cf. “Re- search Program of the Institute,” Bull. Amer. Instit. Persian Art and Archaeol., No. 7 (1934), 26.
17 “Minbar, Masdiid-iDjâmi‘,Muhammadiyé.’Mt/;âr-e lrän, I (1936), 175-80.
18 My negatives Nos. L57.37 and L57.40, unpub- lished. The panels are 33 cm. long by 16.5 cm. high. The naskhi is so poorly drawn and cut and in such a damaged state that the last part is illegible, but the mosque is clearly designated as Djami‘, and the date 909 H., both in script and numerals, may be possible.
28
MYRON B. SMITH
On the Masdjid-i Suflä,19 Muhammadiyyah, are two pairs of inscribed doors, one pair dated 1021 h.,20 the other 997 h. These doors have nothing in common save that their callig- raphy is similar in style and cutting. The sparse decoration of the doors dated 1021 h. is in keeping with that date, but in the case of the doors dated 997 h. (Figs. 16, 17, and 20) the wood carving is so distinguished that one questions how it can be found alongside such wretched work as that of the inscription.21 This date must be considered only as that of the wakf of these doors. On stylistic grounds it cannot be the date of their manufacture. The panel com- position, scale, and ornament recall the raised panels of the Näin mimbar. Here is the digi- tated split palmette, the linear-stem intersecting arabesque disposed axially, the tightly curled tendril ends, and the same tiefenschatten. Only in the profile of the tendrils does the carving technique differ, for here is a rounded stem in contrast to the salient, double bevel of Nâïn. Solely on the basis of technique, these doors should date near the Nâïn mimbar, nor does the ornament prevent such a dating.22 On the other hand, the tightly curled tendril end is not an exclusively Mongol element, as witness examples from Mosul, on the mihrab of the Great Mosque (543 h.), and on Imäm Yahyä (637 h.).23
Not far removed geographically from the Nâïn-Muhammadiyyah woodwork group is the old mimbar in the Masdjid-i Djum'a, Isfahan. Here are star and other panels of a sort close to the Nâïn mimbar and the Muhammadiyyah doors, while two other elements are introduced, panels of rectangular naskhi (Fig. 19 ) and naturalistic leaf forms in high relief (Fig. 11 ). The latter recall the carved gac panel to the left of the mihrab in the Masdjid-i Djum‘a in Warä- min.24 This foliage is most conspicuous on a star panel in the left side (Fig. 11 ) — its mate on the right has been missing some few years — which bears a striking resemblance to another panel reported in a dealer’s hands.23 At another time, when I give the Isfahan mimbar an extended publication,26 1 hope to establish more definitely its connection with the Nâïn mimbar as well as with the Muhammadiyyah doors falsely dated 997 h.
19 Also known as Masdjid-i Sayyid Gunbad, from the small, domed mausoleum on the kibla side. The designa- tion Suflä (the lower) is found on both pairs of doors, although on a cotton carpet (zïlü), dated 1240 H., the mosque is referred to without designation. These zïlü are nearly always inscribed and dated, giving interesting documents. Those of this mosque are dated (all h.) : 997, 10x4, 1027, 1033, 1040, 1240, 1301, and 1342; in the M.-i Diami‘ : 1059, 1103, and 1270; M.-i Sar-i Kücah: 1027, 1246, 1258, and 1337; at Nâïn, M.-i Diämi1 : 1115, 1115, 1115, 1181, 1181, 1x83, 1225, and 1272; M.-i Kal- wän, 1023. The manufactory is almost always Maibud, an old village near Yazd.
20 The language is Persian. Translation : “Has given [as wakf], the honored kadkhudà [headman of the village], Hasan, son of ‘All, our Lord Muhammad Ridä [? ob- scure], this door to the lower mosque of Mudammadi. On the date, the fifth of the sacred month of Dhû al- Hidjdjah of the year one thousand and twenty-one of the Hidjrah of the Prophet [January 27, 1613 a.d.]. [Then
a sign standing for] the blessings of Allah on him and on his descendants.”
For this reading I am indebted to Türän Khänum, of Isfahan.
21 Negatives Nos. L58.12 and L58.14, unpublished.
22 Cf. mimbar (696 H.) in the Mosque of Sultan Ahmad ibn Tülün, Cairo; and certain of its panels now scattered in the Arab Museum, Cairo; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Museum of Industrial Arts, Vienna.
23 Cf. Herzfeld, op. cit., II, 223, Figs. 234-36, 356, 260.
24 Illus., F. Sarre, Denkmäler persischer Baukunst (Berlin, 1901), I, Pis. LV, LVI.
25 Illus., A. U. Pope, An Introduction to Persian Art (London, 1930), Fig. 96.
26 In the course of the study of the Masdjid-i Djum'a that I am now carrying on with the assistance of grants from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Nâïn, Masdjid-i Dtàmi*. Mimbar Panels
in
hJ
w
£
<
Ph
DU
o
o
Q
'<
hJ
(J-l
£
CD
Q
Q*
in
<
>r-H
w
<
>
><
Q
<
£
§
<
6
U-
Photograph, M. B. Smith, Neg. L59.37 Photograph, M. B. Smith, Neg.
Fig 18 — Nâïn, Masdjid-i Bäbä ‘Abd Alläh, Panel Fig. 19 — Isfahän, Masdjid-i Djlum‘a, Mimbar Panels
si
v- ;v-.\
‘*.**4'’
%*1 :V** i-**v %""
■a# *
W$ IKJteöÄ
v.tï I
iVi'kTJ J B-, , i • "
f-é* i
**\*4
m
;****.
/HH
/(*,v
<•»
A«***';.
J/iVÿ'
Vf**
h»*
*,*&*>*;
l&é rte%ÿ<
f'irtiV
S’* •» ♦*>
?
‘£&ê
■m
'V t*. :?v \A-‘
'iS\\:'<C-/ /
.^à£a3
’' -‘>’3
Fig. 20 — Muhammadiyyah, Masdjid-i Suflâ, Doors
EPIGRAPHICAL NOTICE
BY PAUL WITTER
I. The inscriptions on the wood mimbar in the Masdjid-i DjämV at Ndin
1. Inscriptions on the wooden abaci of the colonettes of the canopy (Fig. 6). Orna- mental naskhi on a ground filled with ornament. On the right: ^ “The government
belongs to Allah.” On the left: ^ “The majesty belongs to Allah” — both frequently used Arabic sentences.
2. Wooden panel over the entrance to the stairs (Fig. 2). One line of spaciously written, somewhat stiff naskhi set over the frame ornament. Kur’ân, V, 120:
J5” Uj ^yyij <AL* <d)
To Allah is the government of the heavens and the earth and of all that is therein, and He has power over all things.
3. Inscription of foundation, from 13 11 a.d., left side of the canopy, on the rails of the wooden grill (Fig. 3). Two lines of a rather cursive and crowded naskhi, accompanied by numerous diacritical marks and vocalizations, on a ground filled with ornament. The language is Arabic:
1 (r) <-è.àc> (j>' jJ I jIäJi «Al» j» jistj i I <_asj (1)
it» Ai» All I (J-i
(1) Has given as wakf the most excellent, generous, and respected Sadr (minister), the Malik al-tudjdjär (king of the merchants), Djamäl al din Husain, son of the late ‘Umar, son of ‘Afif, (2) this mimbar (pulpit) for the Masdjid-i Djämi‘ in the town of Nä’in — may Allah accept (it) from him — in Radjab of the year seven hundred and eleven (October 15-November 12, 1311 a.d.).
My reading of the passage between and requires an explanation. The word
which precedes the latter seems to be rather than ^ , and owing to the mannerism of
the writer in turning back the ends of ^ into an acute angle, one would be inclined to read the strange letter over as a ^ or <J. . But if we look at the word ^ in inscription
No. 2, we can see that there it is written rather like The word on the right in inscription No. 1 shows the same manner of placing the top stroke on the shaft of the käf, except that in our inscription this stroke becomes a long loop in order to fill the large, empty space. Thus we are allowed to read , which is a well-known title borne by the chief
of the merchants of a town. It is not at all surprising to see a merchant as minister (sadr) ; our inscription is from the îlkhân period, when commerce was most flourishing and the com- mercial class enjoyed the highest influence and esteem.
4. Inscription with the names of the carver and of the calligraphist. Right side of the mimbar (Fig. 4). Rectangular wooden inscription panel in a frame. The ground is covered with ornament, over which is raised one line of a beautiful, attenuated naskhi, spaciously written in the first two-thirds, but very crowded in the last third. The language is Arabic in the first two-thirds, where diacritical points and vowel marks occur in nearly all instances; a blessing formula in Persian then follows, where points and marks are rather missing; and the rest, the signature of the calligraphist, is again in Arabic:
-ii I y» A^rli ^ yiViJ! ^
34
PAUL WITTER
(This) has made the master, the glory of the workmen, Mahmüd Shah, the son of Muhammad, the nakkäsh (designer, carver), from Kirmän; (the following in Per- sian) : may the Lord absolve him who recites the Fätiha (i.e., the first sürat of the Kur’än); written by (literally: in the writing of) the slave ‘Abd al-Haklm al-Muham- madi (i.e., of Muhammadiyyah).
II. Inscription on a door of the Masdjid-i Suflä at Muhammadiyyah
On the right and left leaves (Fig. 20). Two fields of writing, crudely cut, at the tops of the leaves, each of two lines, those on the left leaf separated by a horizontal band. On the left, below the inscription, the date is carved in the frame. The letters are spaciously written, in a rather coarse but legible cursive naskhi. The language is Persian. In spite of the difference in the shape of the two fields and in the letters, the text is continuous:
(jj (jUaL* ij) (r) AJJI .jLæ 3 «_âsj (0 (Right) frame ) (J UT a)J| ^1 (t) y Ijjj (1) (Left)
(Ri) Has given as wakf Tbädalläh (2) son of Sultan ‘Ali, son of Mahmüd,
(Li) this door to the Masdjid-i Suflä (2) of the village Muhammadi, as an act of devotion to Allah, — may He be exalted. (Frame) Year 997 (November 20, 1588 — November 9, 1589).
Thus the door was given in 1588-89 a.d. by one Tbädalläh for the Masdjid-i Suflä, “the lower mosque,” of the village Muhammadi (= Muhammadiyyah). Mr. M. B. Smith writes me that the name of the mosque refers to its situation in the lower part of the town, which in its upper part possesses another mosque. He has communicated to me another inscription of a door in the same mosque where also “Masdjid-i Suflä-i Muhammadi” occurs.
III. Inscription on the border of a zilü from 1589 a.d. in the Masdjid-i Suflä of
Muhammadiyyah
Negatives Nos. L58-23, L58-21, L58-19, L58-17.1 The inscription is badly damaged (the beginning is missing). The language is Persian. At the end (L58-17), in letters slimmer than the others, one reads the signature of the workman:
Work of ‘All b. Shamsaddin b. Kutbaddin of Maibud.
I owe to Mr. M. B. Smith the reference that Maibud, a village between Näin and Yazd, is well known by its zîlüs, and that the name of our workman occurs also on two other zllüs dating from 1014 h. (1605 a.d.) and 1025 h. (1616 a.d.). This signature is preceded (nega- tives Nos. L58-21 and L58-19) by ^ “at the date Radjab 997 [May 16-June
14, 1589 a.d.].” Thus the zilü is from the same year as the door with our inscription No. II. Before the date we clearly read “has given,” but the preceding two names cannot be the subject of the sentence, since the verb is in the singular. They belong to the blessing for- mula, (J* ->-H öl oi where is an evident faulty orthography of
v'j*": “and its reward for the soul of the father ‘Ali and the brother Shukralläh.” There is still an alif after Shukralläh but no trace of other letters; it seems to be inserted merely to fill the gap. This blessing formula is preceded by J-'J . The word J-8 being the exact
1 Not illustrated.
THE WOOD MIMBAR IN THE MASDJID-I DJÄMI', NÂÎN
35
Persian equivalent of the Arabic word suflä, there is no doubt that it was preceded by : “of the lower mosque of the village before mentioned.” I shall not venture to complete the rest of the missing portion of the inscription. In any case it must have contained a mention of the given object, namely the word zïlü, the name of the village Muhammadï, and the name of the donor, the subject corresponding to the verb x~*°. . As the zïlü is given to the mosque in the same year as the door, 997 h., it is quite possible that the donor of the door, ‘Ibadalläh, also gave the zïlü:
j — ( for: ô' jï 'I* iyl yj ....]
yjt ÿt I y
[. . . . for the] lower [mosque] (of the) village before mentioned; and its reward for the soul of (his?) father ‘All and (his?) brother Shukrallàh, has given (it) at the date Radjab 997 (May-June, 1589 a.d.). Work of ‘Alï b. Shamsaddïn b. Kutbaddin of Maibud.
IV. The inscriptions from a door in the Masdjid-i Djâmï of Näin, at present in the new
Teheran Museum
Two rectangular wooden inscription panels in a frame. The ground is covered with orna- ment, over which is raised one line of a most beautiful ornamental naskhi, with considerably elongated shafts:
1. Figure 9. The beginning and the end are damaged.
_p-yi <0J Ij jj*! «dl I jo Lfco ! <d) I Jli
Shall visit the mosques of Allah only he who believes in Allah and in the last day (Kur’än, IX, 18).
2. Figure 8.
ioJl 4J aU| ^ (for: 1 Jlij
In the vertical sense along the left border:
The Prophet has said — may Peace be upon him! : Who builds Alläh a mosque, Allah builds him a house in Paradise. (Well-known hadlth quoted, e.g., by Suyütï in his DiämP al-saghir after Ibn Mädja.) In the year 874 (July 11, 1469 — June 20, 1470)
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC ART
BY ERNST DIEZ
ISLAMIC ART
A S THE ISLAMIC RELIGION AND CONCEPTION OF LIFE ARE IN THEIR ESSENCE RELATED TO THE
Old-Christian-Byzantine ones, that is, are monotheistic and transcendental, the general con- clusion can be drawn beforehand that Islamic art must possess the same qualities in style as the Byzantine. Thus it is polar, cubistic, static, and its totality lies in the ornamental; how- ever, the tension in the outward appearance of works of art of both religions seems to us so great that categories to unite both groups may be suspected of too great liberality.
When we realize that the diversity in appearance is purely outward and results from the absence of human figures in Islamic religious art, it is evident that the difference is less than at first appears. The essence of the Islamic theory of life is embedded in religion. The Muhammadan religion, like the Christian, is revealed, but goes further by calling itself “islam, ” i.e., subjection to God. This clear designation became a catchword and a battle cry. Muhammadanism is much more definite and limited than Christianity ever was, and these attributes may also be applied to the “art of Islam,” a term which for clearness is to be pre- ferred to “Muhammadan art.” Accordingly the art of Islam or Islamic art is the art which expresses submission to Allah. “Christian art” or “Byzantine art” indicate nothing of the essential qualities of the religion which gave rise to them, but are mere historical notions.
Unconditional submission to God comprehends complete incapacity of self-determination, that unconditional surrender of one’s own personality to the Divine Will, which the Muham- madan expresses in the words “inshallah” and “kismet.” As self-determination is the indis- pensable assumption for the elevation of the subject above the object, and thus of free production, the greatest subjection is naturally the chief quality in the style of an art wishing to give expression to a fettered theory of life. Yet restricting itself to the two-dimensional plane and thus giving up the constructed third dimension is the supreme sacrifice in the fine arts. The third dimension as it was created in the Renaissance expresses in art the emancipa- tion of the individual from destiny.
As we are no longer living in the time of simple composition but in the post-Christian period of polar composition, the plane, in which this art develops and to which it is bound, does not signify a material, but an ideal plane in the sense of polarity.1 It denotes a plane which does not need to be produced by such drawing as is to be found in the simple orna- mental art of primitive peoples, but which pre-exists in space — bringing forward and visualiz- ing by drawing and relief one of the many qualities of Allah, usually his irrational infinity. This relation to the plane is “ornamentalism” in Coellen’s sense, and it can be just as well produced by rows of columns in architecture as by lines of plastic units or purely ornamental forms.
In order to make the idea of “ornamentalism” (in Coellen’s sense) entirely clear, atten- tion must now be drawn to the difference between this notion and that contained in the terms ornament and ornamentation. We call shaped linear decoration of surfaces ornament. Orna- mentation is a system of such elements, whether it is taken within a group or period or in a
1 See my “A Stylistic Analysis of Islamic Art, General Part,” Ars Islamica, III (1936), Pt. 2, 211.
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC ART
37
generally abstract aesthetic sense. The conception of ornament does not, however, comprise the relation of the ornament forms to the surface on which they appear. As long as we are interested in the countless individual forms of ornamental features and inquire whether they are naturalistic or abstract, rational or irrational, freely developing or bound, we do not come to the question of their relation to the plane on which they appear nor to that of the stylistic significance of the relation. This, however, is the starting point of the stylistic significance of ornamentation in a philosophical, i.e., an absolute, sense, as the expression of a conception of life. It is true that Strzygowski and Riegl emphasized Tiefendunkel as a significant relation to planes, and Riegl attempted to interpret it philosophically. But Coellen was the first to coin and describe the term ornamentalism as a style-genetic category. He was the first to recog- nize the fundamental difference between such ornamentation as creates a plane by its pattern (first category) and such as simply makes use of a plane as basis for its own forms (second category). He further shows the difference in genetic style between this ornamentation and the next, which is in the tectonic category, and takes in the plane as a portion of the part-space to be represented, and between this and the ornamentalism of general space in the fourth category.2
Taking note of the leading and influential part assumed by ornamentation in Islamic art, let us again consider, apart from the ornamental standpoint, these four categories. Ornament in a primary sense, “pure” ornament as placed by Coellen in the first category, is pattern without foundation. Pure ornament is direct plane-genesis through purely genetic means which have no individual significance. The employment of individual forms, especially of human beings, animals, and plants, is, on principle, excluded in the first category, where the organizing arrangement of the creating resources can only be pure, i.e., abstractly geometric. The plane to be produced is ideal form.
The producing resources also constitute the plane by leaving overempty spaces between themselves and thus generating the pattern, which is laid on the empty ground, appearing in the spaces between; the pattern alone is the plane to be produced, while the ground, pri- marily, and according to its origin, has no artistic significance. The pattern is the total space and its existential fulfillment. It fills the whole plane, if possible, without interruption, and constitutes it as such. Prehistoric finds and the art of primitive peoples, as well as the early works of historical peoples, furnish ornamentation corresponding to and exactly fulfill- ing the conditions described. A geometric arrangement produces of itself the plane, mostly in such a way that as much of the ground as possible disappears. This peculiarity of primitive ornament was misunderstood and romantically designated as horror vacui. Coellen was the first to give the correct interpretation of it — namely, that the plane is not only the totality of space but also its existential fulfillment.
The preservation of the plane in the next category of space-totality, the “ individual space,”* can only take place by the plane’s, through its creative resources, being put into con- tact with individual forms of plants, animals, and human beings. All the form-conditions of pure ornamentalism remain valid — the geometric order of the elements, their rhythmic
2 Op. dt., p. 203.
3 Loc. cit.
38
ERNST DIEZ
arrangement, and the horror vacui, by the superseding of which the genesis of the plane would, of course, be abolished. This category of artistic expression is already to be found in primitive art, though it represents a higher level than the first.
Ornamentation started an entirely new career in the third, the tectonic category, in which partial space forms the totality. Tectonizing is the systematic interrelating and assembling of individual forms into an organized whole. Examples of tectonization are found in the piling up of demonic figures on a totem pole, the arrangement of sphinxes in rows to form an avenue, the relationship of a figure to the ground by means of a base, or the construction of a temple of walls, pillars, and beams. The beginning of tectonization is the beginning of human history. In art the tectonization leading to the most important results occurs in establishing a relation of the human figure with the background in relief. All these processes belong to the third cate- gory of space-genesis, the partial space which coincides with the organizing of human society in social forms. The change in the form of ornament in this category can be seen especially clearly in Egyptian ornamentation. The arrangement of individuals determines the style in this category, in accordance with which the symmetric ranking of geometrically stylized indi- vidual forms, above all of plant-and-animal forms, becomes the main feature of the ornamenta- tion. In addition, the tectonic arrangement of individuals as the dominating form-idea is indicated by the separation of the ornamental pattern from the ground. The same tectonic relationship comes into action which also leads to the relief. Here, too, the ground becomes the tectonic basis for the ornament-plane, which from now on (as pattern) is tectonically related to the ground. The ground is no longer indifferent, but an essential component of the form, for which many new possibilities are open.
Finally the adaptation of the ornament into the totality of general space takes place in the same way as it does in individual space. The genetic resources of the ornament acquire relationship to general space. Their primary function of constituting the surface as such, is, so to say, double. They now have at the same time to connect the plane with general space. Thus this plane is a boundary layer between its own existence and the totality of general space. The means by which this transformation is brought about are the same as those used in the former category: chiaroscuro and color. Any ornamentation by these two mediums can become elevated to the function of a general space-totality.
Islamic art has the restriction to the plane in common with Early Christian and Byzan- tine, and thus the former as well as the two latter belong to the ornamentalistic style phase of art development, determined polarly. In Western art this category of ornamentalism is fol- lowed by the category of plasticism in Romanesque, of tectonics in Gothic, and finally of general space in Renaissance art. The question ensuing for us is whether Islamic art has not taken place in the second and perhaps also in the third category.
The direct identity of general and partial space is the basic determination for Byzantine as well as for Islamic art. The identity of general spatial totality and its partial-spatial realization determine both styles as ornamentalistic. Earlier, in the period of simple composi- tion, existence was put as its own basis. Now, in the period of polar composition, of transcen- dental world ideas, existence is raised to the sphere of the transcendental basis and made identical with it. The result of this, stylistically, is the determination that the partial-spatial
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC ART
39
formula is raised to the sphere of the presupposed formless general space and considered iden- tical with it, i.e., the form is ornamentalistic plane-genesis. The form, however, is not limited to the ornament, but the general spatial ornamentalistic determination becomes, so far as they can be subjected to it, the style characteristic for categories of art. This was not possible for sculpture and so it was eliminated or ornamentalized from Byzantine and Islamic art.
The ornamentalistic plane-genesis is produced by the cubistic formation of geometric and stereometric formulas, to which can also be added irregular, inorganic, spatial elements, as well as organic forms which are divested of their function.
There are far-reaching differences between Islamic and Byzantine art, although they belong to the same categories of style. Islamic art had only started its formation at a time when Byzantine was at its zenith. Vigorous nomadic peoples, such as the Arabs and the Turks, united with old peoples of culture, such as the Egyptians, the Syrians, and the Iranians, in one idea, submission to the will of God. In spite of this common trend, these various peoples at different phases of culture clung to their own traditions. As an example, they maintained their traditional manner of building even when they had to adapt themselves to the laws of style inherent to their time and to Islam.
A survey of Islamic architecture reveals two types of building of different origin and character. First, the memorial buildings, such as tombs, tomb towers, and minarets; second, the open-court buildings of the mosques and madrasas. The buildings of the first group are not spatial, but plastic. The domed tombs, or kubbas, cannot be considered pure spatial buildings, because that formation was not the primary object of these buildings but was only a necessary result of their object as memorials. A proof of this is the darkness of their interiors, which get whatever light they may have through four barred windows only. Such constructions cannot be classed with spatial buildings such as the Pantheon, in which space was the primary prob- lem and was placed in relation to, and dependence on, infinite space by means of the widely open opaion in the zenith of the cupola. This relation to open space was always emphasized by the skylight lantern in Western architecture. Those who, recalling the never-to-be-forgotten effects of light and space in the Pantheon, have visited the Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur, the largest domed building in the East and exceeding the Pantheon in space, will remember how disap- pointed they were in their expectations. The light is too scanty to give life to the space, which remains the whole day in leaden twilight. Gol Gumbaz is not a space building and could not have been conceived as such, but is simply a monumental memorial.
In what category of style can these buildings be placed? Let us recapitulate the four categories within which the totality of the pre-Christian periods of style, that all belong to the objective view of life, has been realized. First, the formation of the plane through orna- ment by primitive hunting tribes of the Old Stone Age; second, the formation of single space by means of plastic single figures which are not yet in standing position, i.e., are not yet tectonized, such as the palaeolithic “Venuses” and negro sculpture; third, the connecting of such single figures, i.e., their tectonization, and thus the formation of limited partial space, the evolutionary step that was taken in the polytheistic phases of human culture; fourth, the formation of general space since Hellenism, which culminated in architecture in the formation of the interior — in the separation of closed space from general space — while its original
40
ERNST DIEZ
sphere was the creation of pictures, the aim of which is the representation of general space.
As has been learned, this series of styles is repeated in the post-Christian period of sub- jective transcendental views of life, but on a different plane. All that had been already created could not simply be pushed aside, and it was continued under other names.
It now becomes possible to determine the mass of Islamic memorial buildings according to category — they belong to the tectonic order, the formation of limited partial space; to the phase of polytheistic religions as it had been visualized in the art of the great old oriental empires and of Greece. The greatest mental achievement of Hellenism, the discovery of gen- eral space with all its cultural consequences and its realization in art, had no effect on the peoples who spread and organized a new world religion in the eighth century a.d. Islamic architecture did not take part in the forming of the interior, although it appears now and then as a borrowed form. Later Osmanic architecture cannot be cited as an exception, as it devel- oped entirely in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Although Islamic architecture remained in the categorical order of pre-Christian tectonics, its buildings were nevertheless raised to the phase of contemporary polar omamentality and are thus to be recognized as children of the period of absolute, so to say, aprioristic general space, and artistically placed in connection with the pneumatic view of life, of which they are witnesses.
Before this correlation is considered, a few observations may be added on the categorical tectonics of Islamic buildings and their origin. As has been indicated the tomb memorial and beacon tower are tectonized forms of ancient landmarks, such as the stakes and mounds of primitive tribes — in Iran chiefly of northern nomads.4 This applies too, with certain restric- tions, to the domed tombs which go back to primitive house forms. Thus there is here a tec- tonization of ancient primitive forms, such as is found among all peoples of the earth who are in the polytheistic phase of religion. The mounds with round bases and globular- or cupola- formed shapes, or pyramids on square foundations, erected by the Red Indians of the North Atlantic coast may be taken as examples. Similar landmarks and burial hills (kurgans) were, according to the reports of travelers in former centuries, scattered over the Russian and Asiatic steppes. All these simple tectonizations are the precursors of that tectonic development which led to the pyramids and obelisks in Egypt, the pyramid temples of Mexico and South America, the stupas in India and Further India, the pagodas in China, the brick-built memorials in Iran, and the thousands of domed tombs and memorials of saints all over the Islamic world. These innumerable landmarks and memorials spread over the earth characterize their countries far better than the spatial buildings do, and all belong to the same category of style, the tectonic order, and are the result of century-long development, starting their career in the second, the plastic phase of single space, as primitive wood stakes, stone-heaped pyramids, dolmen menhirs, and kurgans. They are anthropologically much more interesting, and from the human historical standpoint more revealing, than the far later spatial buildings.
In order to arrive at concrete conclusions a distinction must now be made between primitive and developed, early and late, archaic and classical tectonics. The totem poles of the American Indians are tectonizations, and the classical temple of the Greeks is still a tectonically
4E. Diez, Persien, Islamische Baukunst in Churasan (Hagen i. H., 1923), pp. 51 ff.
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC ART
41
determined building. The reach from the totem post to the Greek temple is the path of devel- opment from tectonized single objects to the partial space acquired through the tectonization of a number of features such as walls and columns, and this space, embodied in the Greek temple, represents the totality of Greek architecture. Now, in this group of Islamic buildings there is no concern with partial space but only with tectonized single objects which stand as a rule alone and isolated in a plain or on a hill. They would not be considered as partial-space formations, unless they were known to be centers, for instance, of a Paradeisos surrounded by an arrangement of columns like the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae. Such a tectonization may have been carried out much more frequently than can be ascertained today, as such garden- like tectonic enclosures were always destroyed. Yet there are enough instances which exclude such a partial-space tectonization, on account of the isolated position on a hill, so that neither a positive nor a negative conclusion should be drawn. Our present memorials (for instance, of prominent men) belong to the same early phase of the tectonic order when they do not exercise a determined function in a more extensive tectonic partial-space formation, such as the central point of street rays in a city. Such examples only prove that all features in older phases of style are preserved and again made use of with new stylistic significance in later phases. Through experience one can test quite simply how completely different their stylistic function is in historical cultures. If one thinks of Egypt, first pyramids and obelisks, then perhaps also the pylon front of a temple, appear before the mind’s eye, but certainly not the interior of such a building; in China, the curved roof or a whole pagoda; in India the stupa; in Greece the temple; but in Rome the interior of the Pantheon or of the Christian basilica; in Con- stantinople the interior of Saint Sophia; in Cairo or Baghdad, again, the minarets and cupolas of the tombs only. These associated images are the infallible eidola of the characteristic phases of style for different cultures. While the tectonic single objects, such as obelisks, pagodas, or minarets, characterize sufficiently Egypt, China, and the Islamic Orient, this cate- gory of buildings does not signify anything at all either for imperial or papal Rome, or for Paris, though they were and are very frequently to be found in these cities. Thus one comes to the conclusion that Islamic architecture is partly characterized by buildings which belong to an earlier phase of the tectonic formation. They are only raised to the contemporary tran- scendental phase by their polar ornamentality.
The column-and-pillar mosques as well as the iwan-mosque-madrasas may be considered as the next group. Here, too, there is a purely tectonic formation, which was only placed in connection with general space by the chiaroscuro of the colonnades in the courtyard. Interiors of the general-space order had long dominated in the Christian realm, while Islam still found its totality in a purely tectonic type. Hellenism formed single-space units, imperial Roman art combined them in the public baths, but still in a tectonic way, the Christian basilica already knew the composition of space-units, aisle, transept, and apse. In the eighth and ninth cen- turies, when in the Byzantine Orient the basilicas had been long supplanted by the domed churches, which were spatially far better organized, Islam built its tectonic pillar mosques and continued to do so for centuries.
The madrasa was the next type of prayer house. It made its way from Iran to the western countries of Islam.5 Instead of column or pillar halls square courts were now built, with lofty
5 Diez, op. cit., pp. 61-65, 82-88.
42
ERNEST DIEZ
iwans in the main axes and cell niches. The iwan of the kibla was now used for the prayers and a dark-domed hall containing the prayer niche often lay behind it. What has been style- genetically changed as compared to the mosque with pillared court? One now stands in a court surrounded by high walls with two-story cells and iwans in which complete symmetry of the organization of the walls dominates, instead of in a court surrounded by pillars, the arcades of which are too low to allow an impression of space. Although the court is open at the top, it is a space creation, as are also the lofty-arched iwans, which intensify the space kubus in the four axes. Such are the half-open types of space, which were created in the Hellenistic period, when general space became for the first time style-totality in art. The wall forms, how- ever, no longer belong to the “simple-compositional” Hellenistic phase with plastic tectoniza- tion of the walls, but to the phase of polar composition, which now employs general-spatial tectonic forms, such as walls, arches, and vaults. This phase of style developed in the Roman imperial period. The earlier classic Greek spatial limits were now extended to indefinite general-spatial features by means of arches and vaults instead of columns and beams. Yet the relation to antique tectonics was not abolished in Roman architecture so long as buildings with beams supported by columns or piers continued, and walls, arches, and vaults were sub- ordinated to it. Polar composition in general space did not assert itself till the end of the first century of our era, when brick wall as well as vaulting became dominant.
Finally let us consider the domed building as the most puzzling one from the point of style-genesis. The formation of the interior was achieved by Hellenism. Hall buildings or stoas in two stories and interior-space buildings such as basilicas, council rooms, and libraries are the new types, which the architects of Hellenistic interiors created essentially with the old tectonic means of columns and beams in combination with walls. They also built rooms with barrel-vaulted ceilings, but not the dome, which was not used till the time of polar com- position. Till then the formation of cupolas started from below and rose to the top, but now in the building of domes it begins from the top, not technically, but according to the logic of form and therefore lying within the conception of such buildings. For an architect designing a dome, the dome itself is the main point which he tries to visualize, and from this he descends to form the walls in the service of, and dependent on this idea. The central form of building is a mere result. The classical example of this is the Pantheon. Whoever enters first looks upward, and his first impression is the magnificent extension of the space of the dome. The rotunda is the most complete stylistically and the most satisfying solution of this, the greatest building idea of polar composition. Coellen formulates the imperial-Roman style order as it is manifested in the Pantheon, as demarcation of an inner space from the assumed general space and its formation into a dynamic unity, organized in a pictorial chiaroscuro ambient, leaving out of consideration the formal inherent values of the components of indi- vidual space. He finds it important that here dynamic effect is produced through the constant curving of the plane towards the cylinder-and-cupola form, so that we must speak of dynamic architecture as opposed to static. This alone distinguishes such a domed building from an Islamic one with its straight static walls.
There now arises the intrinsic question as to whether all Islamic dome buildings are to be regarded as polarly composed and therefore conceptionally of the same kind as Western
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC ART
43
ones. In order to understand the Islamic attitude better, let us first glance at the stylistic- genetic development of Christian dome building which preceded that of Islam. The Christian basilica is a new form of building which depends upon the composition of the features, such as the narthex, aisle, transept, and apse. By means of this typical collective character of its space parts, the basilica became a prototype of polar composition, the parts of which denote orna- mentalistic order. Communication with outside space is brought about by the rows of windows. Since the reign of Justinian the basilica has been replaced in the East by the vaulted central- space building, while in the West, at any rate, the baptisteries, memorial churches, and mau- soleums were mostly domed.
In contrast to the basilica, which was something new from the stylistic-genetic stand- point, the early Christian tendency of style found in the domed halls of imperial Rome a type of space-form which was rooted in the conditions of the organistic space individual. The object was to transform this type in the sense of a Christian standpoint into a composition of space- features with a cubistic collective character and with the plane as a boundary layer. This transformation took place in the Byzantine East — Saint Sophia is the most brilliant result of the central building transformed into cubistic ornamentality. The predominance of the plane was necessary for ornamentality, and the whole construction is a clear result of this demand. The central body, which was originally placed on the round (e.g., Pantheon), is dominated by the plane. The portion of space over which the central dome rises is no longer the cylinder of the walls but the square bounded by four huge pillars. The square, in exceptional cases replaced by the polygon, also became the typical plan-form for all Islamic domed buildings. An octagonal intervening zone, which forms the transition to the dome, is placed on four solid square walls.
There are two important differences between the Islamic and the Christian-Byzantine domed buildings: the Islamic dome always rests on solid walls with a horizontal termination instead of on pillars, and the transition is formed by separating squinches instead of by con- necting pendentives. The impression of cubism and ornamentality is still more intensified by the four unbroken walls of the main body, and the space effect, too, is quite different through the towering of cubus, prism, and calotte. These buildings are not, like the Pantheon type, conceived from above, thus polarly out of a space-conception, but on the contrary quite nor- mally from below, in tectonic layers. We cannot consider constraint on account of material or technical difficulties as an objection, for the spirit ever conquers the material on the path of its aim.
On the other hand, as we cannot deny the polarity of the Islamic religion and therefore of its art also — in the case of these buildings it can only be a question of inhibitions for the overcoming of which the mental attitude of Islam was not dynamic enough. This does not refer to its outward vitality but to the lack of the profound ethical emotional background of the Christian world, that was already latent in the pre-Christian.
Oriental architecture also lacked the sense for the composition of space-features, as they were realized in Christian basilicas and in Byzantine central buildings. Islamic architecture has no spheric exedras nor apsides. The walls of their domed spaces are stepped by rectangular recesses. The Mediterranean triconcha was rejected by Islamic architecture, which admitted
ERNST DIEZ
only the straight wall as the termination of space. The curved plane had to be taken into the bargain only in the case of the dome, but various methods were employed to flatten it out by means of ornamenting. Thus the real function of the Islamic dome lay in its outward effect, which was heightened by the reflecting splendor of its glazed spheres. For this reason the Turks and Mongols imitated the double-shelled towering stupas scattered over Central Asia when they built their memorials in Samarkand, Iran, and Egypt.
The conclusion follows that dome-building, though it was abundantly employed in Islamic architecture and can even be regarded as an architectural eidolon of Islam, did not play the same creative role style-genetically as in the West. So, in the face of all the discussions on this problem during the last few decades, the surprising but inevitable conclusion is that the genuine dome as polar space-building originated entirely in the Western mind and did not come from the East. This does not mean that the slightest doubt is cast on the theory that the architectural invention of dome-shaped vaulting almost certainly belongs to the Afro-Asiatic desert zone. This is a question dealing exclusively with the style-genetic junction of the dome as spatial formation from the standpoint of art.
Every comparison of medieval Christian with Islamic spatial composition confirms the theory that the evolution from the tectonic partial-space to the general-space form has been denied to Islamic architecture. The Christian church composes with space-units and arranges them in spatial crystals; Islamic mosque- and palace-building set partial spaces beside each other at divergent axes and frequently even in a directly misleading labyrinthic manner. Those who have gone through the palace Chihil Sutun in Isfahan and tried to understand the arrangement of the halls and porticoes by drawing a plan have experienced this confusion in spite of the symmetric scheme. And why do the prayers at the great general religious services stand in long horizontal rows parallel to the latitudinal Kibla wall and form ten to twenty even layers one behind the other? The law of ornamentality is thus confirmed in life.
One of the main means of the polar ornamental order of style is immaterialization. The hard and heavy effect of the material is to be annulled as far as possible by Tiefendunkel, resplendance, and luster. While we find this principle applied in the interior of Byzantine cathedrals, it is the leading formative factor of the outward appearance of buildings, especially of monuments without inner space, in Islamic architecture. The Iranian tomb towers as well as the minarets emphasize ornamentality by disintegrating their wall surface with brick relief work, with omamentalized rows of pillars and tiled spheric roofs. The façades of the mosques, madrasas, and musallas are covered with tiles. The masonry is in strictly cubic forms and coated with colored ornamentation which visualizes ornamental color effects in an isolated and cubistic arrangement of pure pigment surfaces. The static regularly geometric plan predomi- nates and relates all individual forms into an ornamental rhythm. The construction of the linear configurations is irrational as far as possible — beginning, course, and end — insoluble for the spectator’s eye, and thus elevated above the limits of normal human reason into the sphere of divine inscrutability. These nets of lines and formulas, though thought out by human intellect, signify to a certain degree an outwitting and a supernatural surpassing of the limits of human reason.
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC ART
45
The best confirmation for the categorization o f Islamic art as being polar-omamentalistic is the Persian denotation of a rug pattern as zemän (“time”), and of the ground as zerriin (“space”).6
No more significant metaphor, indeed, could have been found for the philosophic aspect conforming to our ornamentality on the transcendental polar level. The third and the fourth dimensions, space and time, are thus projected and interwoven in a two-dimensional weft. Metaphorically the whole Islamic ornamentation has this spiritual function. The manifold arabesque schemes were supposed to visualize transcendentalism and fulfilled this task in two- dimensional polar ornamentality.
Besides this general symbolism, however, almost every single figure of any ornamental design, animal or plant, as well as every color, has a concrete mystic and symbolic significance and thus a polar orientation.7 And it is this latent ambiguity which encouraged the flowery speech of Oriental poetry.
The problem of book illumination has already been discussed in a previous article on Sino-Mongolian temple painting.8 Iranian book illumination belongs to the same category as the Eastern Turkestan-Chinese school of painting alluded to there. This painting is ornamen- talistic-cubistic in an ambient of general space, which is not the result but the supposition of the formation of design. There is, however, a static and a dynamic phase traceable, just as in the evolution from Romanesque toward Gothic. The well-known Iranian illustration of Rustam’s sleep in the Shäh Näme of 868 h. (1463 a.d.) is a good example of the dynamic phase.9
To summarize, Islamic art appears as the individuation of its metaphysical basis ( unend- lichen Grund). This individuation is mechanistic-cubistic, not organizistic like classic Greek and Roman art. The totality of existence was represented by the collective-mass individual, not by the single one. Islamic art had mechanistic individuation in common with Christian art up to the Renaissance, but remained at the ornamentalistic level determined by the magic-life philosophy.10 The individualistic tendency of the western Romanesque style since the ninth century a.d. is not traceable in Islamic art, though Eastern and Western mysticism developed in a similar manner.
The aim of such a study is primarily morphological. In contrast to individuations of the metaphysical basis in other categories of a culture, the individuation in art is visible and legible, and, adequately analyzed, indicates convincingly the limits of the entelechy of a historical culture. This could be confirmed by a similar investigation of poetry and philosophy. Thus the conditions may be prepared for a comparative morphology of human cultures.
6J. Karabacek, Die persische Nadelmalerei Susan- djird (Leipzig, 1881), pp. 36 ff.
7 The symbolism of Islamic elements of pattem ac-
cording to the Arabic and Persian authors is discussed by
Karabacek, op. cit., pp. 137-67.
8 E. Diez, “Sino-Mongolian Temple Painting and Its Influence on Persian Illumination,” Ars Islamica, I (1934), Pt. 2, 168-70.
9 See footnote 7,
10 Cf. the schedule in the first part of this article, “A Stylistic Analysis of Islamic Art.”
EIN ARCHAISCHER MINARET-TYP IN ÄGYPTEN UND ANATOLIEN VON JOSEPH SCHACHT
Es STEHT FEST, DASS DIE ÄLTESTEN MOSCHEEN DES ISLAM KEIN MINARET BESASSEN UND DASS
der Gebetsruf von einem erhöhten Punkte in der Nähe der Moschee — sei es von dem hohen Dache eines benachbarten Hauses, sei es von der Stadtmauer — ausgerufen wurde. Creswell 1 stellt das erste Auftreten des Minarets folgendermassen dar: “Maqrïzï, speaking of this reconstruction (der Moschee des ‘Amr in Fustät unter Mu'äwiya), says that the Khalif Mu‘äwiya ordered Maslama ‘to build sawâmï (pi. of sanma‘a ) for the adhän. So Maslama constructed four sawâmï for the mosque [of ‘Amr] at its four corners. He was the first one to construct them in it, there having been none before his time. . . . The ladder ( sullam ) by means of which the mu’adhdhins mounted, was in the street until Khälid ibn Sa‘d transported it inside the mosque.’ At the same time minarets ( manär ) for the mu’adhdhins were added to the masjids of all the Khittas, except those of Khaulän and Tujib [die in der Nähe der Hauptmoschee gelegen waren und daher keine eigenen Minarets brauchten]. This is our first reference to a minaret. . . . There is therefore reason for believing that the four sawâmï of Maslama were suggested by the four towers at the temenos at Damascus [die von den Muslims als Stellen für den Gebetsruf benutzt worden waren], and that they were small square towers,2 and additional support is lent to this idea by the fact that sauma‘a is the term used throughout North Africa for minarets, which are almost always square towers in that region.” Nur in einem Punkte möchte ich Creswell’s Auffassung modifizieren, nämlich was die Gestalt dieser sawâmï anlangt. Denn weder das funktionelle Vorbild der massigen, aber niedrigen Türme des temenos von Damaskus noch der technische Gebrauch von sauma‘a für das nordafrikanische Minaret, das zudem aus den von jenen merklich verschiedenen, relativ hohen syrischen Kirchtürmen abzuleiten ist, kann uns veranlassen, die ersten sawâmï der ‘Amr-Moschee als “Türme” aufzufassen. Vielmehr haben wir uns nach den mit der Etymol- ogie des Wortes in Einklang stehenden Angaben der arabischen Lexikographen 3 die sauma‘a zunächst als eine Hütte mit spitzem Dach vorzustellen, und die Übertragung des Terminus auf Minarets von anderer Gestalt ist nicht weiter auffällig. Wir kommen also auf den von Creswell beifällig zitierten Ausdruck Corbet’s “sentry boxes” zurück.4
Dieser zu einer bestimmten Zeit von der ‘Amr-Moschee repräsentierte Minaret-Typus ist mit seinen beiden Bestandteilen, der Treppe 5 und dem “Schilderhäuschen,” noch heute unter den ägyptischen Dorfmoscheen weit verbreitet, und auf sein Fortleben aufmerksam zu machen, ist der Zweck dieser Mitteilung. Das hier vorgelegte Material, das sich beliebig vermehren liesse, aber zur erstmaligen Feststellung genügt, stammt von einem systematischen Besuch der
1 K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture . . . (Oxford, 1932), I, p. 38 ff.
2 Dazu gibt Creswell die Anmerkung: “Corbet had already come to this conclusion: ‘It is difficult to say
what the exact form of these may have been ... : in all
likelihood they were but something like sentry boxes,
perched on the roof of each corner
3 Vgl. z.B. E. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1863-93), IV, p. 1728; Lisän al- Arab, X, p. 76.
4 Creswell selbst stellt sich die sawâmï im Endeffekt wohl nicht viel anders vor, wenn er sie als “ small square towers” bezeichnet.
5 Sullam bezeichnet sowohl Leiter wie Treppe; vgl. z.B. Lane, op. cit., IV, p. 1416: “a ladder, or a series of stairs or steps . . . either of wood or of clay [etc.] . . . .”
Fig. 3 — Khattära, Minaret (Markaz Aswan) Fig. 4 — Qurna, Moschee (Markaz Luxor)
Fig. 7 — Qurnat Mur'!, Grabmoschee Sheikh al-Ward! (Markaz Luxor) Fig. 8 — Al-'Abbasa, Moschee (Markaz Zagazig)
Fig. ii — Nag1 ash-Shadä’ida, Minaret Treppe (Markaz Aswän)
Fig. 13 — Grabwoschee Sheikh ‘Ali (Markaz Aswan) Fig. 14 — Kayseri, Moschee
Fie. 15 Fig. i6
Fig. 17
Fig. 15-17 — Kayseri, Moschee
0N
O
£
O
w
K
CJ t n O
§
«
<
c/>
M
h-5
<
3
<
Uh
O
CM
d
Uh
^5
l<£
ol
&
►-)
£
P
K
en
&
P
O
C/D
<
P
HH
G
<
a
p
w
H
«
W
en
<
P
ON
6
£
o
co
CO
£
O
M
§
'<
ol
Q
Q
W
«•
l<
P
<
in-
Q
£
P
s
i<
ol
M
:p
>o
U
w
CJ
P
<
EIN ARCHAISCHER MINARET-TYP IN ÄGYPTEN UND ANATOLIEN
53
zwischen Aswan und Khattära (der nächsten Bahnstation, 13 km. nördlich von Aswän) auf dem rechten Nilufer gelegenen Moscheen, ergänzt durch einige Aufnahmen an anderen Punk- ten.6 Tatsächlich ist dieser Minaret-Typ über das ganze Land verbreitet, und wenn er auch in und in der Nähe von grösseren Ortschaften meist durch das Minaret osmanischen Stiles — ganz abgesehen von der bischer schlechthin als ägyptisch bezeichneten Minaret-Form der Haupt- stadt— verdrängt worden ist, darf er doch als der Normalfall bei ägyptischen Dorfmoscheen, soweit sie überhaupt Minarets besitzen, angesehen werden.
Die Treppe läuft entweder im rechten Winkel auf eine Wand der Moschee zu ( Fig . 1 und 2), oder sie führt an ihr entlang (Fig. 3-6) ; in al-Mahämid (20 km. nördlich von Idfü), wo die Länge der Wand zur Gewinnung des Dachniveaus nicht ausreicht, ist die Treppe um eine Ecke der Moschee herum an zwei Wänden entlanggeführt. Selbst wenn die Treppe an der Moscheewand entlangläuft, ist sie regelmässig von aussen angebaut und entweder direkt (Fig. 1-3 ) oder von den Nebenanlagen der Moschee aus (Fig. 4) zugänglich; in Nag‘ ash-Shima (Fig. 5) verhindert eine eigene Tür an ihrem Fusse unbefugten Eintritt, in Nag‘ al-Hijäb (Fig. 6) ist ihr Fuss vom Inneren der Moschee aus durch eine Pforte zu erreichen, der Aufstieg erfolgt aber auch hier an der Aussenseite der Wand. Die Treppe erreicht das Dach an einer Ecke der Moschee, und hier befindet sich meist ein kleiner Kiosk, das oben erwähnte “Schilderhäuschen”; bei der kleinen Grabmoschee Sheikh al-Wardî (Fig. 7), deren Dach überhaupt nicht zugänglich ist, hat man doch einen solchen Kiosk über der einen Ecke des Ge- bäudes errichtet. Figuren 8 und 9 zeigen zwei einfache Treppen-Minarets aus Holz bzw. Eisen im Delta, bei denen der Kiosk durch eine Brüstung ersetzt ist. Bisweilen fehlt das “Schilder- häuschen” ganz, sodass das Minaret architektonisch allein durch die Treppe vertreten ist; ein besonders schönes Beispiel für diesen Typ liefert die Moschee von Nag‘ ash-Shadä’ida (Fig. 10 und 11). Das gleiche Prinzip liegt in der Moschee von Nag‘ al-Khaläsäb (Fig. 12 ) vor: ihr Grundplan zeigt einen offenen Hof, dem an der Kibla-Seite eine Pfeilerhalle mit einer Kuppel über der Mihräb-Vierung vorgelagert ist; beide sind von einer gemeinsamen Umfassungsmauer, die für den Hof teil erheblich niedriger gelassen ist als für den Hallenteil, umschlossen; dem schliesst sich ander der Kibla gegenüberliegenden Seite noch eine flach- gedeckte, an beiden Längsseiten offene Halle an. Hier steigt, wie mir berichtet wurde, der Mu’adhahin unter Benutzung des Sockels und der Nischen von aussen auf die Umfassungs- mauer des Mittelhofes und über den roh treppenförmig gelassenen Übergang auf das Dach der Kibla-Halle hinauf, das er an einer Ecke erreicht. Häufig ist der Kiosk seinerseits zu einem gedrungenen Minaret-Turm mit Wendeltreppe im Inneren unter Weglassung der geradlinigen Leiter-Treppe entwickelt; so in der Grabmoschee Sheikh ‘All (Fig. 13) und in der einen der beiden Moscheen von Nag‘ al-‘Uqbiya (unmittelbar nördlich von al-Mahämid; die andere hat das reguläre Treppen- und “Schilderhäuschen”-Minaret).
Denselben Minaret-Typ hatte ich in Kayseri (Anatolien) beobachtet (Fig. 14-17)-, 7
6 Zu den Ortsnamen vgl. die Kartenblätter 1:100,000 des Survey of Egypt.
7 A. Gabriel, Monuments turcs d’Anatolie (Paris, 1931-34), I (Kayseri-Nigde) ; II (Amasya-Tokat-Sivas), behandelt weder die hier mitgeteilten noch andere ähn- liche Beispiele; doch verdient seine Bemerkung über die Ulu Djämi‘ in Kayseri (I, p. 35) angeführt zu werden: “Du sol de la mosquée, un escalier à volées rectilignes conduit au niveau de la terrasse : de là on gagne l’escalier
à vis qui s’élève jusqu’au sommet du minaret. Ce dis- positif prouve que le minaret . . . fut édifié après coup [die Moschee wurde wohl in der x. Hälfte des 12. Jahrh. erbaut, und 1205 restauriert]. C’est toutefois le plus ancien des minarets de Kayseri”; dazu die Anmerkung: “Les plus anciennes mosquées de l’Anatolie ne possédaient point de minaret et c’est du haut des terrasses qu’on appelait les fidèles à la prière . . . .”
54
JOSEPH SCHACHT
diese Beispiele stehen aber keineswegs vereinzelt da. P. Wittek schreibt in seinem Beitrag “Milet in der türkischen Zeit”8 über die Gemeindemoschee von Balat (= Milet), die sog. Treppenmoschee (Merdiven-Djämb; wohl aus der Mitte des 14. Jahrh.), über die Ahmed- GhäzI-Moschee in Milas (von 1378) und über die dortige ältere Moschee (von 1330): “ihr Minaret ist eine Plattform, zu der man auf einer geradlinigen, entlang einer der Aussenwände der Moschee geführten, schmalen Steintreppe hinansteigt.”9 In demselben Werk10 schreibt Wulzinger über die Qyrq-Merdiven-Djämi‘ (“40-Treppen-Moschee”) in Balat: ihr Name “bezieht sich jedenfalls auf die als Minaret dienende Steinstiege, welche ohne Verband mit der Mauer parallel zu ihr aussen an die Westwand der Moschee angelehnt ist (Breite 87 cm). Jetzt hat dieses Treppenminaret noch 17 Stufen; es mögen ursprünglich etwa 24 gewesen sein, wenn man eine kleine Plattform annimmt und die Verschüttung von 70-80 cm in Betracht zieht. Die Zahl 40 bezeichnet nach dem Sprachgebrauch lediglich eine Vielheit.” P. Wittek hatte die Güte, mich auf diese Stellen und auf seine im Besitz des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Istanbul befindlichen Aufnahmen der beiden Minarets von Milas {Fig. 18 und 19 ) hinzuweisen.11 Bei diesen westanatolischen Beispielen fehlt also das “Schilderhäuschen” (Wit- tek), im Gegensatz zu den oben angeführten aus Kayseri und einem weiteren aus derselben Gegend, dessen Beschreibung und Aufnahme (Fig. 20) ebenfalls von P. Wittek stammen: “Kadili, kleine Ortschaft in der Nähe von Alisar auf dem Weg nach Terzili Hammam. Als Minaret der Moschee dient eine durch eine Treppe erreichbare Ecke des Gebäudes, mit einem von vier Säulen getragenen Kegeldach überdeckt. . . . Die Versinschrift über der Tür, vom Jahre 1169, nennt als Erbauer einen Gefolgsmann des Ahmed Agha, Voyvoden von Bozok (wohl identisch mit dem 1178 verstorbenen Capan-oghlu Ahmed Pasha). Ich erinnere mich, mehrere solcher Treppen-Moscheen im Vilayet Yozgat und im Vilayet Kayseri gesehen zu haben, datiert war aber nur diese.”
Zu der Frage nach den Beziehungen zwischen dem ägyptischen und dem anatolischen Verbreitungsgebiet dieses Minaret-Typus äussert sich P. Wittek brieflich im folgenden Sinne: “Da ich den Typ gerade in ausgesprochenen ‘Ghäzi’-Gebieten antraf, glaubte ich Überbleibsel eines einst allgemein verbreiteten anatolischen Moschee-Typus vor mir zu haben, der für die GhäzI-Perioden (also im Osten für die Dänishmenden-Zeit, im Westen für das 14. Jahrh.) charakteristisch ist. Um klar zu sehen, müsste man noch viel mehr Material besitzen und vor allem auch genau sagen können, wo der Typ fehlt. Wichtig wäre es vor allem zu wissen, ob er in Syrien, besonders in Nordsyrien, und in Mesopotamien vorkommt. Wenn dies der Fall ist, wäre er eben aus den Thughür — den Grenzgebieten, die in allem hinter der Entwicklung Zurückbleiben, also archaische Züge bewahren — nach Kleinasien gelangt. Für Milet und Um- gegend besteht aber auch die Möglichkeit eines direkten ägyptischen Einflusses: Balat war Hafen und stand besonders mit Ägypten in Verbindung. Wichtig aber ist die Feststellung, dass es sich um den für die ‘Amr-Moschee in Fustät bezeugten Typ handelt, der in den Dorf- moscheen von Ägypten noch weiterlebt.”
8 In Das islamische Milet (Berlin, 1935), S. 4.
9 So ist nach einer brieflichen Mitteilung des Verf. die Jahreszahl 1329 der Publikation zu verbessern.
10 Ibid., S. 39.
11 Für die Überlassung der Vorlagen für Abb. 18-20 bin ich dem Deutschen Archäologischen Institut Istanbul verpflichtet.
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
BY JOAN DU PLAT TAYLOR
^Through funds provided by miss Barbara cooper it was possible during the autumn of 1934 for the Cyprus Museum to investigate some sources of glazed Byzantine pottery in Cyprus. This pottery is well known throughout the Near East in the late Byzantine and early Turkish periods, and some fine specimens are found in Cyprus. Indeed, the Cyprus Museum has a large and interesting collection of bowls of this ware, although little is known of their history or provenance. Many are said to have come from graves near old churches, and it was with a view to investigating these reports that a small excavation was undertaken at Episcopi.
Episcopi, situated some eight miles west of Limassol, was a village of some importance during the Lusignan period. It was a fief of the Ibelins, counts of Jaffa, and in the fourteenth century passed into the hands of the Cornaro family from Venice; thence it was called “La Piscopia dei Cornari,” and a branch of the family became known as “Cornaro della Piscopia.” 1
A number of ruined churches cluster in and around the village, most of which were finally destroyed to build the modern church of Saint Chrysostomos. One of these, near the sea, originally held a relic of Saint Hermogenes, and another called “Catholiki” was possibly the seat of a bishop.2 The sites chosen for excavation were Ayios Mamas at the north end of the village, and Chrysanayotissa, on the ridge to the west of the main road to Paphos.
THE EXCAVATIONS
Ayios Mamas
This church, called “Catholiki” on the Kitchener survey,3 is about a quarter of a mile from the northern limits of the village, not far from the school. Nothing now remains of the church and its surrounding buildings but a mound of stones. A few of the villagers said that the walls were standing some fifty years ago, but the stones were then taken to build the new church. As it was our object to investigate the graves only such notice was taken of architec- tural features as came within the area of work.
An area approximately 1 1 m. by 3 m. was cleared around the apse of the church, revealing a quantity of foundations among which the graves were placed. The foundations ( Plan la; Fig. i ) showed that the church had been rebuilt at one period; the lowest were well con- structed of local limestone, and included the broad footings of a double apse and the south terrace wall which bounds the excavation. Large blocks of dressed stone had been used for the wall of the apses, but many had been removed to make niches for the graves.
The second church, rebuilt as it stood in the last century, was not more than 15 m. to 20 m. long and was poorly constructed within the north apse of the first church.
The loose stone wall forming the eastern boundary of the excavation and the cross wall between meters 8 and 9 are probably late foundations for a mud-brick enclosure wall and outbuildings.
The graves can be arranged in three groups, corresponding with their layers and in a measure with their periods.
* G. Jeffery, A Description of the Historic Monuments s Capt. H. H. Kitchener, Trigonometrical Survey of
of Cyprus (Nicosia, 1918), p. 377. Cyprus, 1882 (London: Edward Stanford, 188O
2 Ibid.
56
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
Starting from the surface:
Layer i. Graves 3, 6, and 8-13 ( Plan la; Fig. 2). The graves were situated in a gray alluvial soil around the apse and on the south side of it; none was more than 50 cm. below the surface. All the bodies were placed with their heads to the west.
Grave 3 (Fig. j). Adult skeleton enclosed in a stone-lined grave in the earliest founda- tions at the east end of the north apse. The skeleton lay extended on the back, with the head slightly turned to the left and the hands resting upon the thighs. The legs had been destroyed by the construction of the boundary wall. The fragments of the bowl, together with the two coins, were scattered over the body.
a) Green-painted bowl, Form 1, of finely silted buff clay; covered inside with white slip; glaze, thin and yellowish; diameter 17.5 cm. (Fig. 6).
b ) Silver coin, Turkish, circa 1603-17; diameter 11 mm. This coin is too badly struck to identify, but is of the type of Ahmad I ibn Muhammad.4
c ) Bronze coin, Fran. Venier, Doge of Venice, 1554-56; diameter 14 mm.5
Obverse, lion rampant 1., + s marcvs venetvs.
Reverse, cross with lozenges between the arms, + fran venerio dvx.
Graves 6, 8, and 9 are those of adults; the skeletons were placed in extended position with the hands to the sides, and lay directly in the earth. The skeleton in Grave 8 appeared to be in a half-seated position and overlapped Grave 9, which was considerably disturbed by it; the skull of the latter lay between the feet of that in Grave 8. Fragments of pottery were found in Graves 6 and 8.
Grave 6. a) Base of green sgraffito bowl; creamy clay; white slip inside and out; clear glaze; diameter 7.5 cm. (Fig. 7). b) A few plain fragments.
Grave 8. Green-painted bowl, Form 10, of pink clay; white slip inside; pale yellow glaze; diameter 14.5 cm. (Fig. 8).
Grave 10 contained many disturbed fragments of skeletons in extended positions, lying in the cross wall ; on the breast of the southernmost was a bowl.
Green-painted bowl, Form 25, as in Grave 8; diameter 14.5 cm. (Fig. p).
Graves 11, 12, and 13 were those of small babies, a few months old. In Grave 11 the skeleton was practically complete, and the child appeared to have been buried in a seated position. Graves 12 and 13 were rather fragmentary; the skeletons were laid on a rough pav- ing of small stones beside the cross wall.
Two plain white bowls, Form 17; red clay; white slip inside and out, not on foot; thin
clear glaze; diameter 12 cm.
In the debris of Layer 1 was a quantity of potsherds, together with six bowls and two Vene- tian coins which could not be attributed to any particular grave.
4 Cyprus Dept, of Antiquities, Rept., 1934, p. 23. line with the remainder of this layer.
It is possible that this coin is intrusive and belongs to 5 P. Lampros, Monnaies inédite du royaume de Chypre
the time at which the foundations of the boundary wall au moyen age (Paris, 1876), Type roo. were constructed, thus placing the date of this burial in
Plan la
Plan Iô
58
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
Nos. 2, 5. Green-painted bowls, Forms 25, 13; light red to pinkish clay; white slip inside and outside rim; pale yellow glaze; diameters 14.5 cm., 12.5 cm. (Figs. 13, 14).
Nos. i, 4. Green sgraffito bowls, similar to Figure 18; central design, 1; diameters 15.5 cm., 14.5 cm.
No. 3. Brown-glaze bowl, Form 23; red gritty clay, covered with paler wash inside and partially outside; dark yellow glaze; diameter 13.5 cm.
No. 6. Base of green sgraffito bowl, similar to Figure 28; diameter 13 cm.
No. 7. Bronze sezin of Peter Lauredano, Doge of Venice, 1567-70 (Lampros, No. 102); diameter 19 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1., nimbate + sanctvs marcvs venet.
Reverse, cross with lozenges between arms, + petrvs lavreda dvx.
No. 8. Bronze denier of Hieron. Prioli, 1559-67 (Lampros, No. 100) ; diameter 13 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1., s marcvs venetvs.
Reverse, cross with dots between arms, hieron p[ — ]i dvx.
Layer 2. Graves 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 14-16 (Plan lb; Figs. 2, 4). The graves were approxi- mately 40 cm. below Layer 1 , in a red sandy soil, and also among the early foundations of the church, where stones had been removed to form niches for their reception.
Graves 1, 2, 4, and 5 are burials in these niches. All appear to belong to children less than two years old. But little remained of the bones. In Grave 1 were fragments of a skull; in Grave 4, part of the skull and backbone; and in Grave 5, skull, ribs, and backbone — sufficient to show that the body had been in an extended position.
Grave 1 .
Grave 2.
Grave 4. Grave 5.
a) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 8; pink clay; white slip inside and out; light yel- low glaze; diameter 15 cm.
b ) Bronze denier of Janus, King of Cyprus, 1398-1432 (Lampros, No. 67); diameter 15 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1., Janvs roi d.
Reverse, cross, iervsalem.
a) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 28; light pink clay; thick white slip inside and out, not on foot; thin yellow-green glaze; diameter 12.5 cm. (Fig. 10).
b) Two small strips of bronze mounting.
c) Bronze denier of (?) James II of Cyprus, 1382-98 (Lampros, No. 62); diameter 14 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1.
Reverse, cross with small cross or star between arms. All border and
legend missing.
Single yellow shard.
a) Green sgraffito bowl; diameter 15 cm., similar to Figure 18.
b) Part of bronze denier of Janus or John II, 1432-58 (Lampros, Nos. 95-98, p. 43); diameter approximately 14 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1.
Reverse, cross of Jerusalem; legend missing.
Grave 7 lies partially under Grave 6, and the head and upper part of the body had been disturbed at that burial; the pelvis remained, and there was a sufficient part of the arms to show that they had been folded upon the breast. The coin was found among the fragments of the pelvis.
a) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 7, similar to that of Grave 1; diameter 15.5 cm. (Fig. 11).
Plan Ile
Plan lia
Plan 116
Plan Ilia
Plan III6
6o
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
b ) Bronze denier of Janus, 1398-1432 (Lampros, No. 10); diameter 15 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1., + de chipre d eri.
Reverse, cross of Jerusalem, + janvs roi de ch.
c ) Green-painted bowl, Form 25; pinkish clay; white slip inside; yellow glaze; diameter 14.5 cm. (Fig. 12).
Grave 14 contained fragments of a child’s skeleton, buried in a partly contracted position. Graves 15 and 16 were those of adults in extended position, buried on the earliest foundations. In both, the arms were folded upon the breasts, and the head of the skeleton in Grave 15 was turned slightly to the left.
Grave 15. Two green sgraffito bowls, similar in type to that in Figure 11, lay near the right leg.
a) Central design 2; diameter 14 cm.
b) Central design 3; diameter 12 cm.
Only a few shards were found near the foot of Grave 16.
Layer 3. Graves 16-18 (Plan lb; Fig. 5). These graves consisted of narrow trenches cut in the rock, situated in the bottom of the area enclosed by the south wall. No graves were found in the 60 cm. of earth above this level. The rock-cut graves were covered with large slabs of stone; the trenches were 30 cm. wide and 20 cm. deep. They contained a number of skeletons, placed head to foot, not well preserved, but with sufficient remaining to show that the arms had been folded upon the breasts. Only the rim of a coarse cooking pot was found with them.
The burials appear to represent a series extending over some two centuries, but in placing them in more or less logical groups several points seem to stand out.
The burials in Layer 1 are at a higher level, well above the foundations and in two cases overlaying previous burials; all are in extended positions, with the hands to the sides. Grave 3 is an exception in that it is among the foundations, but it coincides with the other burials in the remaining respects of coin date and burial position. In Layer 2 the graves, in two instances sealed by upper burials, lie among the early foundations and just in the level of red soil. They show in the adult skeletons an extended position with the arms folded upon the breasts. The children’s skeletons were too fragmentary to show this position, but as the coins in Graves 1,2, and 5 are contemporary with those in Grave 7, one may assume that the period is the same.
The graves in Layer 3 are entirely separate, outside the foundations of the earliest church. No conclusive evidence exists with regard to their date, but from their position they are probably contemporary with the first church.
As Layer 2 burials lie in and around the foundations of the first church, they must be contemporary with the second church. The earliest possible date furnished by the coins (James II, 1382-98) would allow for its construction in the latter years of the fourteenth cen- tury, this date being also a terminus ante quem for the pottery.
The graves of Layer 1 are closely grouped together by the coins, so that they represent burials towards the end of the Venetian occupation of the island, while Layer 2 contains burials during the preceding century.
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
6l
The last event in the constructional history seems to be represented by the east boundary wall of loose stones, which cuts into Grave 3, and the cross wall over Grave 10. If the evidence of the Turkish coin in Grave 3 can be accepted, this may have been erected in the early seven- teenth century, shortly after the Turkish conquest.
In brief the graves and buildings can be ascribed as follows:
Period I. First church. Graves 17-19, Byzantine, circa eleventh-twelfth century.
Period II. Second church. Graves 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 14-16, circa 1390-1550.
Period III. Second church. Graves 3, 6, and 8-13, circa 1 554-1 571.
Period IV. Rough boundary walls, Turkish, circa 1617.
The distribution of the pottery is shown as follows:
|
TYPES OF POTTERY |
LAYER I |
LAYER 2 |
SHARDS PER CENT |
|
Brown-and-green sgraffito A |
7-3 |
||
|
Brown-and-green sgraffito B |
|||
|
Green sgraffito A |
12.2 |
||
|
Green sgraffito B |
4 |
6 |
|
|
Green-painted |
5 |
I |
12.4 |
|
Plain white |
2 |
5-8 |
|
|
Green |
3-6 |
||
|
Brown |
i |
0.8 |
|
|
Foreign |
1.8 |
||
|
Coarse red |
56.0 |
On this site, green sgraffito and green-painted predominate; brown-and-green sgraffito is represented by a small quantity of shards, as are also the foreign wares. The coarse shards constitute more than half the remainder.
Chrysanayiotissa
This church is situated on a ridge to the southwest of the village. It stands just below the brow of the hill, but now only the west end of the barrel vault remains. This church also was depleted to construct the present building.
Two trials were made on this site — one near the center of the north wall and another
Ô2
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
around the east end of the apse. Little or no traces of foundation were discovered, and at the apse the lowest course was not more than 30 cm. above the rock.
SITE I
A pit, approximately 5 by 1.60 m., was sunk some two meters from the north wall of the church. It was bounded on the north by a well-built terrace wall, similar to that at Ayios Mamas, which enclosed the leveled area around the church.
The excavation was divided into layers by the presence of more or less intact graves, though on this site the skeletons were not nearly so well preserved as at Ayios Mamas. After clearing some 65 cm. of debris from the surface, the graves were reached at a further 85 cm. In this surface layer were many fragments of bone, a number of mixed potsherds, and some bronze objects. These included a small bronze gilt cross, with incised ornament back and front, a gilt-headed nail, a small bronze fitting, and a bronze Byzantine coin of Isaac II, 1185-95.6
Layer 1. Graves 1-5 ( Plan lia). All the skeletons were placed in extended position with the heads to the west and the hands to the sides; the bones were very fragmentary. In Graves 3 and 4, flat stones were placed to support the heads. Graves 1,3,4, and 5 were on the same level, but Grave 2 was about 15 cm. deeper. Above it were the disordered remains of a later burial.
Two bowls and a coin were with the skeleton, but from their position it appears that only Bowl 2, found in the left hand, and the bronze hooks and eyes and pin adhering to some cloth on the breast, can belong to this burial. Bowl 1, some 10 cm. above the feet, and the coin just above the skull, are more likely to belong to the grave above.
Grave 1. Grave 2.
Grave 3.
Green-painted bowl, Form 25; pale pink clay; thick grayish white wash inside;
light yellow glaze; diameter 14.5 cm. Similar to Figure 17.
a) Green-painted bowl, Form 9; rough pinkish clay; thick white slip inside and on rim; thin yellow glaze; diameter 12.5 cm.
b ) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 15; fine pink clay; thick white slip inside and out; floral design with splashes of blue, emerald-green and mad- der-brown; clear yellow glaze; diameter 12.5 cm. (Fig. 15).
c) Bronze denier of Hieron. Prioli, Doge of Venice, 1559-67 (Lampros,No. 100 [see p. 58] ) ; diameter, 14 mm.
d ) Six pairs of bronze hooks and eyes, and four eyes, adhering to some cloth, length 1.4 cm.; a bronze pin, length 2.5 cm.
Plain white bowl, Form 15; bright red gritty clay; covered with thick cream
wash inside and out; greenish yellow glaze; diameter 12.5 cm.
Layer 2. Graves 7-13 ( Plan lib). In the intervening 30 cm. between these graves and the layer above a quantity of broken bones and potsherds and twenty-two bowls were found, unconnected with any grave. With them was a bronze denier, unidentifiable except as belong- ing to the Lusignan period. The levels of these graves varied slightly. All the skeletons were in extended position, with the hands folded on the breasts. In Graves 9 and 10 some effort had been made to enclose the heads with stones. Only the lower extremities of Graves 7 and 8 were uncovered. Graves 9-12 were some 20 cm. deeper, and the upper part of Grave 11 was de- stroyed at the burial of Grave 10. Grave 13 was the lowest.
6 Diameter 2.7 cm. Cf. Brit. Museum Cat., No. 26, p. 593, PL LXXII, 5.
Fig. i — A\ios Mamas: Footings of Apse of First Church, Grave 14 in Foreground
Fig. 2 — Ayios Mamas: Graves 6 and 8-1 1, Showing Layers i and
Fig. 5 — Ayios Mamas: Grave 17, in Layer 3
V
Fig. 6 — Ayios Mamas: Green-Painted Fig. 7 — Ayios Mamas: Base of Green Fig. 8 — Ayios Mamas: Green-Painted Bowl from Grave 3, 1550-1600 a.d. Sgraffito Bowl from Grave 6 Bowl from Grave 8
Fig. 9 — Ayios Mamas: Green-Painted Bowl from Grave 10
Fig. 10 — Ayios Mamas: Green Sgraffito Bowl from Grave 2
Fig. 11 — Ayios Mamas: Green Sgraffito Bowl from Grave 7 (a)
Fig. 12 — Ayios Mamas: Green-Painted Fig. 13 — Ayios Mamas: Green-Painted Fig. 14 — Ayios Mamas: Green-Painted Bowl from Grave 7 (c) Bowl, No. 2. Bowl, No. 5
Fig. 15 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 2 (b)
Fig. 16 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Green Sgraffito Bowl,
Grave 8 (a)
Fig. 17 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Green-Painted Bowl (a)
Fig. 18 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Green Sgraffito Bowl (g)
Fig. i g — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Shard (i)
Fig. 20 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Shard ( k )
Fig. 21 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Base of Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl (/)
Fig. 22 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl (v)
Fig. 23 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Layer 2 ( c )
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
67
Grave 7. Base of coarse unglazed bottle.
Grave 8. a ) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 8; pale pink clay; white slip inside and out; pale yellow glaze; diameter 14.5 cm. {Fig. 16).
b ) Plain white bowl, Form 16; buff clay; white slip inside and out; clear glaze; diameter 14.5 cm.
Graven. Green-painted bowl, Form 14; pale pink clay; thick white slip inside; pale yellow glaze; diameter 13.5 cm.
Other bowls, a) Green-painted bowl, Form 10; pale pink clay; white slip inside and on rim; pale yellow glaze; graffiti flY on base; diameter 15 cm. {Fig. 17).
b ) Green-painted bowl, Form 14; similar to that in Grave 1 1 ; diameter 13.5 cm.
c ) Plain white bowl, Form 19; pale pink clay; white slip inside and out, except on foot; creamy glaze; diameter 13 cm.
d) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 8; pale pink clay; thick white slip inside and outside rim; pale yellow glaze; center design 5; diameter 14.5 cm.
e ) Green sgraffito bowl, as ( d ) above; center design 6; diameter 14 cm.
/) Plain white bowl, Form 18, as (c) above; diameter 13.5 cm.
g) Green sgraffito bowl, as {d) above; diameter 14 cm. (Fig. 18).
h ) Coarse red-ware bowl, Form 37; rather gritty clay ; unglazed; diameter 13.5 cm.
i) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 34; fine pinkish clay; white slip inside and out- side, except on foot; design on both sides; pale yellow glaze; diameter 12 cm. {Fig. iq).
j) Green sgraffito bowl as {d) above; diameter 13.5 cm.
k) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl (base); Form 5; hard red clay; thick white slip in- side; design in dark green and red-brown; pale yellow glaze inside and out; length 15 cm. {Fig. 20).
l ) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl (base); Form 26; soft cream clay; white slip inside and out; pale yellow glaze; length 14 cm. {Fig. 21).
m) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 25; pale pink clay; white slip inside and outside rim; pale
yellow glaze; graffiti on side ; diameter 13.6 cm.
ri) Green-painted bowl, as {b) above; diameter 15 cm.
0 ) Green-painted bowl, as (a) above; diameter 12.5 cm.
p) Brown-glazed bowl, Form 30; fine reddish clay; glazed dark brown inside; diameter 15 cm.
q ) Green-painted bowl, Form 20, as {a) above; diameter 13 cm.
r ) Part of plain white bowl, as (c) above.
$) Part of plain white bowl, as (r) above.
t) Plain white bowl, Form 11; thin red clay, as (c) above; clear glaze; diameter 13 cm.
u ) Part of green-painted bowl, Form 19; pink clay; white slip inside and out; light green glaze {Fig. 17).
v ) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 2; buff clay; white slip inside and out; clear glaze; diameter 18 cm. {Fig. 22).
Layer 3. Grave 14 {Plan lie; Fig. 24). This layer had only one grave, cut in the rock, but in the 30 cm. of earth above it two coins and one bowl were found. The grave was a narrow trench, tapering towards the foot, about 25 cm. deep (length 2.20 m., width at head 50 cm.). The burial was similar to the others, with the hands folded upon the breast. A long blue glass bottle (length 16 cm.) with biconal body and tubular neck was laid upon the right shoulder, while on the breastbone was a circular bronze brooch with flat pin (diameter 3 cm., Fig. 25).
68
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
Other finds:
a) Bronze denier of Janus, 1398-1432 (Lampros, Nos. 67-69); diameter 15 mm.
Obverse, lion rampant 1.
Reverse, cross.
b ) Bronze coin, type of Janus, or Peter I or II, circa 1350 (Lampros, p. 43) ;
Obverse, illegible
Reverse, cross.
c ) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 34; buff clay; white slip inside and out; clear
glaze almost worn away; diameter 9.5 cm. {Fig. 23).
The upper Layer 1 on this site seems to coincide closely in date and in pottery with the material from Ayios Mamas. The burials are made in the same positions as in the upper layer, and the coins are the same.
In Layer 2, also, the burials are similar to those in Layer 2 at Ayios Mamas, and the coins are of corresponding dates.
The grave of Layer 3 is not dated, but the type of glass found therein may be found in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. From the coins found above, this layer must be earlier than 1350.
The following relative dating for the layers is therefore suggested:
Layer 1, 1550-1571;
Layer 2, 1450-1550 (including Grave 2);
Layer 3, twelfth century-1450.
The pottery was distributed as follows:
|
TYPES OF POTTERY |
LAYER I |
LAYER 2 |
SHARDS PER CENT |
. _ SHARDS LAYER 2 ° PER CENT |
|
Brown-and-green sgraffito A |
I |
13-5 |
17-5 |
|
|
Brown-and-green sgraffito B |
i |
3 |
I |
|
|
Green sgraffito A |
7.6 |
4-o |
||
|
Green sgraffito B |
6 |
|||
|
Green-painted |
2 |
5 |
9.0 |
4-5 |
|
Plain white |
i |
6 |
10.2 |
5.0 |
|
Green |
2.5 |
... |
||
|
Brown |
i |
1-9 |
5-6 |
|
|
Foreign |
6.4 |
1.6 |
||
|
Coarse red |
i |
49.0 |
61.8 |
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
69
We find an increased quantity of brown-and-green wares on this site, with a corresponding decrease of green sgraffito and green-painted wares, as compared with Ayios Mamas, The pro- portion of foreign wares is also increased, though the types are the same.
SITE XI
In this trial to the east of the apse, the layers were not so easily distinguished, owing to the nearness of the rock, and the burials were closer together and more disturbed. The greatest depth was 1.50 m., at the northeast corner.
Layer 1. Graves 1-10 ( Plan Ilia; Fig. 30). The most recent burials appear to be Graves 4-10 near the apse. They were not more than 20 cm. below the surface. All the skeletons were in extended position, with hands to the sides and the heads to the west. The bones were rather disturbed, but in better condition than those in Site I. The bowls were almost always placed near the hands or feet.
Grave 6 contained a rather small skeleton, probably that of a young person. Graves 7, 8, and 9 overlaid each other; a stone supported the head of the skeleton in Grave 7, and beneath was the bowl in the left hand of that in Grave 8. Only the upper part of the skeleton in Grave 9 remained, the lower extremities having been displaced by later burials; the right arm lay a little apart. At the foot of Grave 10 was an odd tibia and a bowl; these were the only remains of another burial.
Grave 6. a) Green-painted bowl, Form 9; buff clay; white slip inside; pale yellow glaze; diameter 13.5 cm.
b ) Green sgraffito bowl (base), Form 8; coarse pink clay; white slip inside; light yellow glaze; center design 7.
Grave 7. Green-painted bowl, Form 16; pinkish buff clay; white slip inside; pale yellow glaze; diameter 17 cm. approximately (Fig. 26).
Grave 8. Green sgraffito dish, Form 4; pinkish clay; white slip inside; bright yellow glaze; diameter 21 cm. (Fig. 27),
Grave 10. a) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 10; pink clay; white slip inside; bright yellow glaze; diameter 15.5 cm. (Fig. 28).
b ) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 12, as above; diameter 14.5 cm. (Fig. 2Q).
Graves 1-3 (Fig. 30) are some 15-20 cm. deeper than Graves 4-10. The skeleton in Grave 1 had the left arm folded upon the breast, and Grave 2 had both arms so placed. The latter also partially overlaid Grave 3. The skeleton in Grave 3 lay on the right side with both arms to the sides. The bowls lay near the feet of the skeletons in Graves 1 and 2, and on the right shoulder and body of that in Grave 3.
Grave 1 . Grave 2.
Grave 3.
Plain white bowl, Form 19; pink clay; white slip inside and outside rim; pale
yellow glaze; diameter 15 cm.
a) Green-painted bowl, Form 25; buff clay; white slip inside; pale yellow glaze; diameter 16 cm. (Fig. 31).
b ) Green sgraffito bowl (base), Form 7; buff clay; white slip inside and out, except on foot; pale yellow glaze; center design 8.
a) Brown-and-green sgraffito dish, Form 3; pink clay; white slip inside and out; yellow glaze; diameter 20 cm. (Fig. 32).
b) Plain white bowl; Form 19, as in Grave 1; diameter 13 cm.
70
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
Layer 2 ( Plan llîb; Fig. 35). In this layer the burials were placed just upon the rock, or in narrow rock-cut graves, in two cases covered with large slabs, as at Ayios Mamas. In the intervening 30 cm. between the two layers, a number of potsherds were found, from which thirteen bowls were reconstructed.
Graves 12 and 15-20 lay upon the rock, or on a thin layer of earth just above it. All the skeletons were in extended position, with the arms folded upon the breasts. Some of the bones were somewhat displaced, but on the whole the skeletons were well preserved. In almost every case blocks of stone or slabs had been used to enclose the heads. The bowl (a) in Grave 14, and the bowls in Graves 17 and 20 were not very close to the skeletons, and one cannot say with certainty that they belong to those burials.
Grave 12. Grave 14.
Grave 15. Grave 16.
Grave 17.
Grave 18. Grave 20.
The skeleton clasped an iron implement upon the breast. It had a long prong
and a double handle. It was possibly a taper holder, for the prong had no edge;
length 26.5 cm. (Fig. 36).
a) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 7; buff clay; white slip inside; pale green glaze; diameter 14 cm.
b ) Part of brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 34; pinkish clay; white slip inside and out; pale yellow glaze; height 11 cm.
c ) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 8; pink clay; white slip inside and outside rim; pale green glaze; diameter 14.5 cm.
Green-painted bowl, Form 9; light red clay; white slip inside; pale yellow
glaze; diameter 14 cm. (Fig. 37).
a) Plain white bowl, Form 19; pink clay; white slip inside and outside rim; pale yellow glaze; 4 incised strokes outside; diameter 12.5 cm.
b) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 21 ; pink clay; white slip inside and out, except on foot; pale yellow glaze; diameter 15 cm. (Fig. 38).
a) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 27; buff clay; white slip; light yel- low glaze, fired brown on outside; diameter 16 cm. (Fig. 3p).
b) Plain white bowl, Form 31, as in Grave 1; diameter 14 cm.
c ) Plain white bowl, Form 19, as (ô); diameter 12.5 cm.
a) Plain white bowl, Form 18, as (b) and ( c ) above; diameter 14 cm.
b) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 35; pink clay; white slip inside and out; dear glaze; diameter 13.5 cm. (Fig. 40).
a) Green-painted bowl, Form 8; diameter 14 cm.; similar to Figure 17.
b) Brown-and-green sgraffito bowl, Form 36; pink clay; thin white slip inside and out; light yellow glaze; diameter 12:5 cm. (Fig. 41).
c ) Plain white bowl, as in Grave 16 (a); diameter 15 cm.
Other bowls:
a) Rim of green-painted bowl, Form 25; creamy pink clay; white slip inside; pale green glaze.
b) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 8; pink clay; white slip inside and out, except on foot; pale yellow glaze; diameter 14 cm. (Fig. 33).
c ) Green sgraffito bowl, Form 6; soft pink clay; white slip inside; yellow glaze; diam- eter 18 cm. (Fig. 34).
d) Plain white bowl, Form 19, as in Grave 16 (a) ; diameter 14.5 cm.
e) Plain white bowl as above, diameter 13 cm.
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
71
/) Plain yellow dish, Form 22; light red clay; white slip inside covered with yellow glaze; diameter 14.5 cm.
g) Green-painted bowl, Form 29; light red clay; white slip inside, with dashes of green and yellow on rim; pale yellow glaze; diameter 13.5 cm.
h ) Fragments of green-painted bowl; Form 9, as in Grave 6 (a).
i ) Green-painted bowl, Form 32; pink clay; white slip inside and out, except on base; pale yellow glaze; diameter 13.5 cm.
/') Plain white bowl, Form 18, as (d); diameter 12.5 cm.
k ) Green sgraffito bowl (base); pink clay; white slip; pale yellow glaze.
l) Slip-painted bowl, Form 33; red gritty clay; dark green glaze; diameter 17 cm. (Fig- 39 )•
m) Plain white bowl, Form 14, as ( d ).
Grave 13 is a narrow rock-cut trench, 1.90 m. long, 35 cm. wide, and approximately 20 cm. deep. The skeleton lay in an extended position, with the hands covering the face. A lamp was placed between the knees.
Coarse red- ware lamp of shell type with flat base; covered central container with handle
to rim; chocolate glaze inside; diameter 7.5 cm. (Fig. 42).
Graves 11 and na were also narrow trenches, covered with slabs of stone. The skeletons were completely destroyed and nothing was found in the graves.
Though this site produced no coins or other certain evidence of date, I am inclined to place it, on stylistic grounds and in forms of disposition, as the earliest in the group.
Graves 4-10, beside the fact that they form the upper layer of burials with hands to the sides, fall also into a pottery group of their own. Beside one or two specimens of green-painted and green sgraffito ware, a particular form of green sgraffito with bright yellow glaze is found, which is not represented in any other site. From external evidence these may be placed not earlier than 1450 (see p. 85). The remainder of the graves in this layer form a consistent group both in type of burial and in form of pottery, of which Graves 1-3 are the earliest.
From the evidence of Site 1, where Grave 14 is situated in a rock-cut trench, we may assume that Graves 12-20, some of which are rock cut, must be contemporary, i.e., from the twelfth century onward. The burials also are placed with the arms folded, a position found on Site I to date earlier than 1500.
The dating of this layer cannot be exact, but the following is suggested:
Layer 1. Graves 1-10. Fifteenth century.
Layer 2. Graves 11-20. Twelfth-fifteenth centuries.
The Italian jug (Fig. 42) was reconstructed from shards found on this site. The type was not found on either of the other sites. The Samarra-type bowl, Form 38, also came from among the brown-green sgraffito shards.
The general proportions of pottery are here similar to those of Site I, but there is an increased quantity of brown and green shards of the early varieties — elaborate incised ware and slip-painted ware.
72
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
The disposition of the pottery is shown as follows:
|
TYPES OF POTTERY |
LAYER I |
LAYER II |
SHARDS PER CENT |
|
Brown-and-green sgraffito A |
2 |
23-3 |
|
|
Brown-and-green sgraffito B |
i |
3 |
|
|
Green sgraffito A |
3 |
6.7 |
|
|
Green sgraffito B |
2 |
6 |
|
|
Green-painted |
3 |
5 |
4-3 |
|
Plain white |
2 |
9 |
22.0 |
|
Green |
5-8 |
||
|
Brown |
2 |
1. 1 |
|
|
Foreign |
12.8 |
||
|
Coarse red |
25.2 |
SUMMARY OF POTTERY
The pottery found on these sites can be classified in certain specific groups, some of which are represented by shards only, as is shown in the foregoing analyses. In the following pages these will be described and their general connections noted. The principal groups are as follows:
1. Sgraffito wares, (a) brown-and-green and ( b ) green 3. Plain glazed wares
2. Green-painted ware 4. Foreign wares
5. Coarse unglazed wares, red and white
I. SGRAFFITO WARES
This group is the best known of Byzantine wares, and Cypriot pieces are numerous among museum specimens. These are usually to be recognized by their tall form and their niggling, often meaningless, designs. The type, however, is found all over the Near East, and the varieties have been classified under many heads. Here it has been found convenient to place them in two groups: (a) that characterized by brown-and-green glaze decoration; ( b ) that characterized by designs executed in green glaze only.
Fig. 24 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Grave 14 in Layer 3
Fig. 26 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green-Painted Bowl from Grave 7
Fig. 25 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site I: Glass Bottle and Bronze Brooch from Grave 14
Fig. 27 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green Sgraffito Bowl from Grave 8
Fig. 28 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 10 (a)
Fig. 29 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 10 ( b )
Fig. 30 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Graves 1-3
Fig. 31 — Chrysanayiotissa. Site II: Green-Painted Bowl, Grave 2 (a)
Fig. 32 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 3 (a)
Fig. 33 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green Sgraffito Bowl ( b )
Fig. 34 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green Sgraffito Bowl (c)
Fig. 35 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Graves 18-20
Fig. 36 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Iron Prong from Grave 12. Lamp from Grave 13
Fig. 37 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green-Painted Bowl, Grave 15
Fig. 38 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 16 ( b )
Fig. 39 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Slip-Painted Bowl, Grave 17 (a)
Fig. 4c — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 18 ( b )
Fig. 41 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Brown-and-Green Sgraffito Bowl, Grave 20 ( b )
Fig. 42 — Chrysanayiotissa, Site II: Italian Jug from Layer 2
8
Fig. 43 — Italian and Other Foreign Shards
Fig. 45 — Sgraffito Shards
|
's |
|
|
- |
/
/
/
Forms of Pottery
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
81
a) Brown-and- green. This group is represented by a large number of shards and several bowls. Among these subtypes are distinguished, corresponding to known varieties of the ware:
(i) A bright brick-red pottery, turning to gray, sometimes covered with a wash of its own clay. For the most part the inside of the bowls is covered with a white slip on which the design is carried out. The whole bowl has a yellow or greenish glaze, which turns to dark yellow or chocolate brown where it overlies the body on the outside.
The most usual Forms are 27, 37, and occasionally 30, sometimes with rounded instead of angular sides.
The varieties of decoration are numerous. The true sgraffito design used to outline figures {Fig. jç) and geometric patterns {Fig. 45, No. 8) is most commonly found in museum speci- mens attributed to Cyprus. A bowl in the British Museum collection,7 though not found in Cyprus, is very similar in technique. The designs on some of the shards {Fig. 44, Nos. 1, 3, and 4) are coarser and more decadent and may be compared with those found in the agora at Athens, and called by Waagé “Turkish sgraffito.”8 Figure 44, No. 2, can be compared to the “areal” designs from the same site.9
The flat-bottomed bov/1, Form 38, is decorated with faint sgraffito lines and rather drib- bled colors, a technique closely connected with some of the Samarra wares.10 It can also be compared with a fragment from Athens.11
Another shard {Fig. 20 ) belongs to a type of pottery usually decorated in marbled tech- nique— in this case it is almost identical with a shard from the Athenian agora.12
A variant of sgraffito design is illustrated by two shards (Fig. 45, Nos. 3, 11, and 12) in which the lines are made with broad- and narrow-pointed instruments, giving the motif the appearance of relief. Examples of this work, sometimes called “elaborate-incised ware” 13 or “champlevé,” 14 are usually well executed, but the Cypriot specimens are rather poor.15
The last type which may be included in this group is the slip-painted ware (Figs. 43 and 45, No. 4). A fine specimen from Claudia, Cyprus, is exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many fragments were found at Athlit 16 and in the agora at Athens.17
These sgraffito wares spread over some two centuries, but on one or two sites can be dated approximately. Waagé attributes much of the late sgraffito wares to Turkish times, i.e., to the
7 R. L. Hobson, Guide to Islamic Pottery (London, 1932), Fig- 39-
8 F. Waagé, “Preliminary Report on the Medieval Pottery from Corinth,” Hesperia, III (1934), No. 2, 310, Fig. 14, thirteenth century; also Corinth in “Middle Byzantine Pottery from Excavations at Corinth,” Amer. Journ. Archaeol., XXXIX (1935), Pt. 1, 115; and C. Johns, “Excavations at Pilgrims’ Castle, ‘Atlit (1932-3) . . . ,” Palestine Dept. Antiquities Quart., V (1935), 48, Fig. 13.
9 Ibid., Fig. 7.
10 Brit. Mus. Coll.
11 Waagé, op. cit., Fig. 16a.
12 Ibid., Fig. 16/z., Turkish sgraffito.
13 Talbot Rice, Byzantine Glazed Pottery (Oxford, 1930), PI. i.
14 Hobson, op. cit., pp. 24 ff.
15 Cyprus Dept, of Antiquities Rept., 1934, PI. X, Figs. 3 and 4. See also R. M. Dawkins and J. P. Droop, “By- zantine Pottery from Sparta,” Ann. Brit. School Athens, XVII (1910-11), PI. XV, Nos. 41, 42, 49. These are said to be earlier than fourteenth century.
16 C. Johns, “Excavations at Pilgrims’ Castle, ‘Atlit (1932) . . . ,” Palestine Dept. Antiquities Quart., Ill (1934), No. 3, PI. LVII, Fig. 2.
17 Waagé, op. cit., p. 323.
Forms of Pottery
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
83
end of the thirteenth century, but shows a continuity in the areal and other designs of the preceding centuries. Corresponding to these, similar wares excavated at Athlit Castle are proved to be not later than thirteenth century, as the castle was abandoned in 1291.
For the earlier types, the early sgraffito and elaborate-incised wares are found together at Corinth.18 Glass was also present, and the group appeared to belong to the twelfth century. The Samarra bowl type is also eleventh-twelfth century.
The above notes give a range of date which is fairly consistent with the excavated ma- terial, covering the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Forms of Pottery
(2) The second group has a light buff to gray clay, almost always slipped with white both inside and out — sometimes the outside is molded, and the bowls are generally better fin- ished than those in the last group. The shapes are almost exclusively Forms 26,34,35, and 36, while Form 2 is rare. The glaze covers the slip and is usually very light in color. The designs have for the most part become decadent or meaningless and are usually described as late sgraf- fito.19 The earliest is perhaps Figure 24, which can be compared with a dish from Athlit,20 though the work is not so good.
Among the beakers (Figs. 21, 26, and 44), some of the designs follow the early sgraffito.21 A unique specimen in the Cyprus Museum collection (Figs. 18 and 43, No. 1) is closely allied to this style; the occurrence of blue and emerald green in the glaze is rare, and it is possible that this bowl is connected with the Italian sgraffito.
The remainder of the shards can best be compared with types of Turkish sgraffito22 (Figs. 23, 35, 44, No. 5, and 45, Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, and 10). This group appears to be a development of the former types during the fourteenth century.
18 C. H. Morgan, II, “Several Vases from a Byzan- tine Dump at Corinth,” Amer. Journ. Archaeol., XXXIX (i935), Pt. X, 76.
19 Talbot Rice, op. cit., PL 3.
20 Johns, op. cit., PI. LIV, Fig. 1, thirteenth century.
21 Waagé, op. cit., Fig. ge.
22 Ibid., p. 318, Figs. 14-16; and Johns, “Excava- tions at Pilgrims’ Castle, ‘Atlit (1932-3) . . . PL XXVII.
84
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
b) Green. Two sub types are represented:
(1) Soft buff clay, slipped on the inside only, and glazed bright yellow. The shapes are Forms 4, 6, 10, and 12. The designs (Figs. 28, 2Q, 34) show a marked, though ill-copied, resemblance to the Persian bowls from Rhages and Zendgian, exhibited in the British and Victoria and Albert Museums.23 Figure 28, however, is almost identical with the base of a bowl from Cilicia,24 and it is possible that there is a link here with oriental pottery. The fish, on the other hand, resembles some of the early sgraffito animals.25
(2) This pottery is similar to the brown-and-green ware in clay, slip, and glaze. The chief difference lies in the shapes ( Forms 7, 8, 21, 23, and 28). The bowls (Figs. 7, 10, 33, and 38) seem to be transitional from the brown-and-green, but the most usual Forms, 7 and 8, have a common design — the concave-sided square with varied central badges (Figs. 11, 16, and 18 ). This design seems to have been carried on in the green-painted group, until all defi- nite pattern dies out. This group seems not to be represented outside Cyprus, and is dated by the excavated material to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
2. GREEN-PAINTED WARE
This pottery is similar to the green sgraffito, but the glaze and slip are generally rather poor. The Forms are 1, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 25, and 29, The painted decoration is very rough, and a few shards are painted with manganese instead of green. The bowl in Figure 26 shows a conventional likeness in form and decoration to a bowl from Samarra.26 It is an isolated specimen which should be placed with Group (b, 1) in date and origin. This ware is most prolific in the later levels, especially at Ayios Mamas, and seems to belong to the late fifteenth-sixteenth centuries.
3. PLAIN GLAZED WARES
a) White. The pottery is similar to the brown-and-green sgraffito (2). The Forms are 11, 14 ,15, 16, 18, 19, 22, and 31. The ware is found in all the layers, but chiefly in conjunc- tion with the brown-and-green sgraffito ware.
b ) Brown. The clay is usually red with yellow or chocolate glaze inside; occasionally a thin white slip is applied first (Form 22). The lamp (Fig. 36) is similar to one found at Athlit 27 and belongs probably to the thirteenth century.
c ) Green. Shards only were found of this ware, with a poor lead glaze. Rims with wide flanges and parts of deep bowls were found.
23 Hobson, op. cit., Fig. 35 (tenth-twelfth centuries), Cyprus Dept, of Antiquities Rept., 1934, PI. XII, Fig. x.
24 E. Herzfeld and S. Geiger, Monumenta Asiae Mi- noris Antiqua (Manchester, 1930), II, p. 197, PI. 206.
25 Talbot Rice, op. cit., PI. 13. He notes the decora-
tion is sometimes enriched with green glaze.
26 Hobson, op. cit., Fig. 13, ninth century.
27 Johns, “Excavations at Pilgrims’ Castle, ‘Atlit 1932) . . . PI. LVII, Fig. ic.
MEDIEVAL GRAVES IN CYPRUS
§5
4. FOREIGN WARES
These are represented by shards only. The majority had a dark cream body with gray- or lavender-blue glaze and no slip. The decoration was carried out in a darker blue with high lights picked out in white. Dashes of green and orange-brown were also used. The shapes were chiefly plates, shallow bowls, and vases with ring bases (Fig. 43, Nos. Q-14.)
This pottery closely resembles the Venetian majolicas of the early sixteenth century,28 but is rather coarse. The fine floral design (Fig. 43, No. 6) is more like some of the Turkish ware of the same date.
Another type of shard has a coarse pinkish body overlaid with a thick white glaze, drib- bled at the edges. Dark blue, with occasional touches of green and red-brown, is used as dec- oration in bold strokes and vague floral filling. In some, the glaze has a bluish tinge. The shapes are chiefly globular with flat, unglazed bases (Fig. 43, Nos. 4, 5,7,8).
Mr. R. L. Hobson thinks these are a fifteenth-sixteenth century Italian ware, but they resemble also shards from Ephesus and Kutähiya.29 The reconstructed vase (Fig. 42) and the shard (Fig. 43, No. 2), which has a brick-red body with no white wash, are almost identical with shards excavated at Bologna, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. They are said to be Bologna ware of the fifteenth century.30 A single shard (Fig. 43, No. 3) represents the blue siliceous-glazed ware with sandy body usually attributed to Damascus or Rakka.
These wares probably represent the pottery generally imported during the Italian occu- pation of Cyprus.
5. COARSE WARE
This brick-red ware, hard and rather gritty in texture, is similar to pottery now made in Korno, Galata, and other hill villages of Cyprus, and is still extensively used by the peasants. The shapes are bowls (Form 37), jugs, and amphorae with roulette pattern on neck and body. The ware was most plentiful in the upper layers. A negligible quantity of coarse white pottery was also found.
6. GLASS
The glass cannot be dated with certainty, but it was found with thirteenth- and fourteenth- century pottery at Athlit 31 recently, and also at Corinth with thirteenth-century wares.32
The results of these trials were not so definite as could be wished — coins were scarce except at Ayios Mamas, and the separation of layers by undisturbed graves was, of necessity, inexact. One or two points, however, may be noted as a result.
28 B. Rackham, Guide to Italian Maiolica (London, 1933), PP- 7°, 73-
29 Hobson, op. cit., pp. 79-81. J. T. Woods excava- tion, p. 30.
30 Rackham, op. cit., pp. 82-83.
31 Johns, “Excavations at Pilgrims’ Castle, ‘Atilt (1932-3) . . . ,” p. 52.
32 Waagé, op. cit., p. 115.
86
JOAN DU P. TAYLOR
On all the sites, there seems to be a marked change from burials with the arms folded to burials with the arms to the sides. The reason for this change of custom is not yet evident, but it seems to take place during the fifteenth century and to accompany the disappearance of the brown-and-green sgraffito pottery.
With regard to the pottery, the excavation shows the general trend of development in Cyprus in the medieval period and the sequence of two types — the green sgraffito and green- painted can clearly be followed. The former seems to be evolved from the brown-and-green sgraffito and in the fifteenth century succeeds it. The green-painted ware in the same way imitates the green sgraffito, so that in the sixteenth century, we have no brown-and-green sgraffito, and only these two decadent types, as exemplified at Ayios Mamas.
The last point is the sign of definite oriental influence, exhibited in one or two of the earlier fragments — the green sgraffito (page 83, b, 1), with its close resemblance to the Rhages wares (more emphasized in another bowl in the Museum collection) has also been found in Egypt and Palestine, but its provenance there is not authenticated. It may, however, be suggested that this type of pottery had penetrated to the west during the Mameluke invasions in the fifteenth century.
The other type to be noted is the brown-and-green sgraffito ware which is very similar to the eleventh-century wares from Samarra; the resemblance is so close that one would suggest it was an importation, though it is earlier in date than much of the other pottery found here.
Note. Though it is some two years since the above was written, and not a little has been published on medie- val wares in the interval, the dating of the material has
not been altered in any essential, though some of the connections with other countries may need confirmation.
cms
Green Sgraffito Designs
Fig. 3 — Last Paper Flyleaf, recto, Folio 9 verso
AN ARABIC-PERSIAN WOODEN KUR’ANIC MANUSCRIPT FROM THE ROYAL LIBRARY OF SHÄH HUSAIN SAFAWÏ I, 1105-35 H.
BY NAB I A ABBOTT
A HE PRESENT MANUSCRIPT IS NOW IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. JAMES G. FLESSER OF CHICAGO,
who acquired it during his travels in Persia, from a merchant of Teheran.
General description. Outer format, 16.8 by n.8 by 0.5 cm.; that of the twenty-nine wooden folios, without the paper margins, an average of 14.5 by 8.3 cm.; and the thickness of the leaves as measured by a micrometer, 0.0 1 to 0.125 mm. Margins of thin blue paper,1 varying in width from 0.8 to 2.3 cm., frame the wooden folios. A paper flyleaf is added at each end. The folios are glued together at the inner margins, and the whole is glued to the back of the cover by way of binding.
The present color of the wood is a delicate, yellowish light brown, but it is possible that this color is in part due to age and to the polish preservative used in the preparation of the sheets. The grain of the wood is very fine, uniform, and compact. The wood knots are to be seen on several of the folios (Fig. 2). The surface is so highly smoothed and polished that, though both sides of the sheet bear writing, nowhere does the ink soak through or spread. Positive identification of the wood is difficult, but both boxwood and cedar wood are possible, and perhaps even poplar wood, all three being readily found in the East, and widely used for delicate and valuable art objects of woodwork.
The cover has a thin foundation of coarse, rough leather, overlaid with an extremely fine and highly smoothed reddish-brown leather on the inner side. This folds over upon the outer side to form a narrow frame for the tapestry which forms the outer cover of the binding. This tapestry, of multicolored design on a background of white, consists of a number of pieces, small and well worn, patched together without any regard to the original design or to the grain of the weave of the cloth. The narrow leather frame is stamped with a silver border design, now much faded.
Content, script, and decorative scheme. The twenty-nine folios contain eleven suras of the Kur’än. The Arabic text, written in black ink, is in the usual naskhi script; the Persian interlinear translation, in red ink, is in the nastaliq script. The penmanship in both instances is of a high quality, both from the point of beauty of letter forms and of evenness and expert uniformity of execution.
An extensive decorative scheme is limited to the first double page of the text (Fig. 1), Here a simple geometric and floral design is worked into the upper part of each of the two pages, with a floral leaf-and-bud border for the margins. Blue, outlined largely in white, is freely used in the main design of the upper half of the page; the rest of the floral design is carried out in a dull olive green with touches of deep red. A narrow border of red, dotted in white, separates the upper decorative half from the text and from the margins. The captions on both pages are in the thuluth script, written in green over gold. The caption on the first of the two pages consists of the usual name, place of revelation, and number of the verses of the süra — in this case Yä-Sln ; that on the second page consists of the familiar verses 79-80 of
1 This paper Is of British manufacture; it has an im- “BATH” in Roman capitals — a testimony to early Brit-
print (not a watermark) on folios 12-14, consisting of a ish trade in Persia,
wreath enclosing the British Crown over the word
90
NABIA ABBOTT
Süra LVI (al-Wäki’at) “None shall touch it but the pure; a revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.” The line drawings, carried out in gold, now somewhat greenish, and outlined in black and red, are very fine and expertly done throughout. For the rest, attempts at decora- tion consist of writing the sura headings in gold and of marking off the verse divisions with a small gold circle or disk.
Later “decorations” have marred rather than improved the manuscript. These consist of three paper cutouts2 pasted, one each, on the paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end of the manuscript and on the recto of the first wooden leaf. This last is cut out of thin red paper, twice folded, so as to give a symmetrical design of four units working from the center out- ward. It seems to represent a hunting scene, with men afoot and on horseback, animals that suggest the elephant, deer, and boar, and several bird figures. Though the cutting is neatly done, the design on the whole is crude in appearance. The cuts on the front and back flyleaves are of thin yellowish- and bluish-white paper respectively, and the animal and floral design of each is carefully executed.
Origin and date of the manuscript. It may be readily seen that the manuscript as we now have it is not in its original format or its entire original binding. The wood margins show words cut away for the larger part, indicating that these wood margins were originally wider, wide enough at least to allow for the completion of these words. Wear and tear on the delicate wooden sheets may have been the cause of the trimming down of the margins, and the addi- tion of the blue (to take away the evil eye?) paper margins.3 Several of the folios show paper patching of thin strips mostly, but also of large sections in some few instances. The paper flyleaves with their cheap paper cuts do not seem to be in keeping with the rare wooden sheets; and although the leather part of the cover may be original with the manuscript, the many-pieced tapestry is more in keeping with the paper cuts than with the wood folios themselves.
To detect these later additions does not, however, bring us any nearer to the origin of the manuscript itself. For this we must turn to two notes (Fig. j), one on the verso of the last wooden folio, and a later one on the recto of the end flyleaf. The second of these notes as translated by Professor Sprengling reads as follows:
He [is]4 the Holy one — This little book, which contains 29 wooden leaves, on which are written and inscribed these blessed suras, Yâ-Sïn,
Fath, al-Rahmän, Wâki‘a, Dukhän, Käf, al-Hashr, Jumu‘a, Munäfikün,
2 ‘Abd Allah, son of Mir ‘Ali, the originator of the nastaliq script, is credited with the creation of this art of Persian paper cuts. The innovations of both father and son date back to the fifteenth century of our era. Cf. C. Huart, Les calligraphes et les miniaturistes de l’Orient musulman (Paris, 1908), pp. 207-9, 32S-
3 Another and an earlier Çafawïd manuscript, this time of some of Jâmî’s poems dated 1556 a.d., has mar-
gins of different colors. The manuscript was exhibited at the recent Exhibition of Islamic Art (No. 5 in the Cata- logue) held at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, February to March, 1937.
Cf. Karabacek, Das arabische Papier (Wien, 1887), PP- 60 ff., for use of colored paper, p. 63 for use of blue paper.
4 For the reading of the first word as 3* , see S. Beck, Neupersische Konversations — Grammatik (Heidel- berg, 1914), p. 477. Cf. J. Karabacek, Papyrus Erzher- zog Rainer, Führer durch die Ausstellung (Wien, 1894), p. 259, from which it would seem possible that this word, read in Persian and Turkish documents and letters as
p
3* , is in reality an extremely abbreviated form of the Bismillah.
AN ARABIC-PERSIAN WOODEN KUR’ÄNIC MANUSCRIPT
91
al-MuIk, [and] al-Naba’, at the time when Shäh Sultän Husain Safawl — may God illuminate his proof s — was at the height of his power and authority, was graciously accepted in the form of a presentation and fifty ashrafi 5 6 pieces were presented in return, and the head and seal of the opposite page must be [that] of the royal librarian.
The following year, which is four alifs, mi h. (1699-1700 a.d.), the well-known year of the death of Majlis! Thànî (Majlis! II) — may God sanctify his tomb — would be the first of the weakness of the rule of the Safawl lords, and from [? or the beginning of] it the Afghan outbreak and the conquest of Kandahar dates [literally «], in order that God might accomplish an affair that was preordained, through which circum- stances there came to pass the rule of the Käjär dynasty and the pre- miership of [their] great and famous men. Written in the day of the mission.
The historical events7 referred to here are briefly as follows:
The first years of Shäh Husain’s reign were to all outward appearances peaceful and prosperous. The meek and pious shah gave himself up to his pleasures, and the reins of his government to the mullahs who were all-powerful at his court. Outstanding among these were Mullah Muhammad Taki-i-MajlisI, died 1070 h. (1659-60 a.d.), known as Majlisï I, and his son, Mullah Muhammad Bäkir-i-Majlisi, known as Majlis! II. Both were fanatic Shi ‘a divines who did much to popularize ShTa traditions among the masses. The activities and fame of the father, however, were overshadowed by those of the son, who came to be considered as the most notable and powerful of all Shra divines.8 His death in mi h. (1699-1700 a.d.) was much lamented, and his tomb became a shrine to his Sh!‘a admirers,
5 This phrase, frequently used as a wish, seems to have
reference here to the man’s, and not to God’s, “proof,” as interpreted in a similar case by Mr. Muhammad A. Simsar, “Three Rare Manuscripts from the John Frederick Lewis Collection,” Journ. Amer. Oriental Soc., LVII (1937), 94. Mr. Simsar has capitalized the “his” in Lane’s translation, which reads “God taught him his proof.” Lane’s transla- tion, which, it is true, overlooked the fact that the phrase is used to express a wish, is based on Täj al-Arüs, III, 590, where we have for the phrase * 1a jU I the
explanatory phrase <U-A). Since the first phrase is
frequently used, as in both these present instances, as a wish for a deceased person, and since the second phrase is likewise so used and is frequently found on tombstones as a wish that God may “ ‘suggest’ or ‘dictate to him his argument,’ when the dead are questioned by the angels of divine inquisition in the graves,” see Amer, Journ. Semitic Lang, and Lit., Ill (1936), T96, we can safely give as a free translation of the first phrase, “May God inspire him to put forward a convincing proof.”
6 The name ashrafi as applied to coins probably dates
back to the Mamlük Sultan al-Ashraf Barsbey of Egypt.
Its use spread to the East, and several of the Çafawîd
shahs, including Shah Husain, struck ashrafi gold coins, whose standard weight was about 54 grains troy. Later Nadir Shäh introduced the muhr-ashrafi, which weighed 162 grains troy, or three times the weight of the standard ashrafi; cf. R. S. Poole, Catalogue of the Coins of the Shahs of Persia (London, 1887), pp. Ixi-lxiii. By a regu- lation of 1793, the weight of the gold muhr-ashrafi, as used in India, was fixed at 190.894 grains troy, and its value in Calcutta estimated at about 16 rupees; cf. F. Steingass, Persian-Englisk Dictionary (London, 1884), p. 64, under the word ashrafi. According to this the value of a 54-grain ashrafi would be about 4^2 rupees.
7 For accounts of Shah Husain’s reign and his times see Encycl. Islam, II, 341-42; Jonas Hanway, An His- torical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea with the Revolutions of Persia (London, 1753), HI, 22-56; John Malcolm, The History of Persia (London, 1829), I, 400-438; Sir Percy Sykes, A History of Persia (London, 1921), II, 214-42; E. G. Browne, Literary His- tory of Persia (Cambridge, 1929-30), IV, 113-14, 129-33.
8 For a characterization of the man and an account of his numerous works, cf. Browne, op. cit., IV, 120, 194, 359, 366, 381, 403-4, 409-10, 416-18.
92
NABIA ABBOTT
who presently began to attribute the supreme disaster of the Afghan rebellion to the dis- appearance of so saintly a character.9
Owing to the character of Shäh Husain, the weakness of his government, and the intrigue of his court, there was wanting the man and the co-operative effort to overcome the Afghan rebellion which was maneuvered by the great Mir Wais. The revolution brought about the fall of the Safawlds, and the practical extermination of that royal house through a wholesale massacre of the male members of the shah’s family. Shäh Husain himself, after being deposed in 1722, was slain in 1729.10 The Afghans in their turn were presently over- thrown by the efforts of Nadir Shäh, 1148-60 h. (1736-47 a.d.), the Zends, 1163-1211 h. (1750-97 a.d.), and finally the Käjärs, 1193-1342 h. (1779-1924 a.d.).
The date of this note, 1229 h. (1814 a.d.), is to be found in the last sentence, f3i (/ -Lr*, a chronogram the numerical value of which totals 1229. 11 The note is therefore about 115 years (119 Hijra years) later than the note on the opposite page to which the writer makes reference in such a way as to leave the impression that he, too, had some difficulty in reading this first note, which in parts, at least, is decidedly illegible. Since he does not tell us outright that the writing and seal of the first note are those of the royal librarian, but states that they should be those of the royal librarian, we in turn should be justified in inferring either that his statement was more or less a guess or that he had other sources of information regarding the manuscript, from which he drew his own conclusions as to the probable authorship of the first note. His otherwise careful and accurate historical references indicate a man well acquainted with the history of Persia and probably with its historical literature also.
The reading12 of this earlier note, so far as it is legible, seems to run as follows:
^ ! Js 0*1 J (jli- ^ £■ (j) j— Ptfi J 111* <ujj JA JJ (l )
jW** Jb** àiW** ^ yd® 5b* (r)
<UJ U I yy*® ******* (T)
c— ■ 1 sß (jUl ^ I o'&cj y>j (t)
III» I y yt)
(seal)
Translated, these read:
i. Written at Hud 13 in Muharram of the year mo, [by] Muhsin ibn ‘Ali Khan. Kur’änic manuscript.14
9 Ibid., 120.
10 Ibid. , 129-33.
11 The 1 nim of the word is as clear as the mint
of the word in line IT- To read f5i
(cf. Kur’än, Süra 30, verse 56) instead of
would give the date 1189 h. (1775 a.d.), which would be too early, since Aghä Muhammad, generally consid- ered as the founder of the Käjär dynasty, did not begin to play a decisive role till 1193 h. (1779 a.d.); cf. Mal- colm, op. eit., II, 174-78.
12There is some possibility that the last part of the line beginning with Muhsin formed a separate notation.
Uncertain readings are overlined.
13 A place in the province of Yazd; cf. Steingass, op. cit. For Yazd, see Yäküt, Geographisches Wörterbuch, Ed. Wüstenfeld (Leipzig, 1924), IV, 1017-19.
14 The word À*> j indicated originally the casket or box in which the Kur’än was kept or carried, but seems to have been transferred in Arabic usage to the Kur’än itself. Several dedicatory sheets of Kur’äns given in wakf refer to the Kur’än in question as
(e.g. Oriental Inst., No. A 12030). A rä’ joined to a following alif, as seen in the word is not un-
known in Persian writing.
AN ARABIC-PERSIAN WOODEN KUR’ÄNIC MANUSCRIPT
93
2. [? words] the Safawï sultans, at the close of the fourth year.
3. [? words] (of the reign of) Shäh Husain Safawï al-Munzar Billah.
4. At which time he gave for it the just price of fifty ashrafi [pieces].
(Seal): Muhammad Bäkir ibn Saiyad Hasan al-Husainï [mo h.].
The seal has made a very poor impression on the wood. It is oval in shape, and the style of its inscription resembles that of the four seals, three oval and one rectangular, found on another manuscript — a wakf document dated 1118 h. (1706 a.d.) — from Shäh Husain’s library.15 The rectangular seal belongs, like ours, to Muhammad Bäkir ibn Saiyad Hasan
al-Husainï,16 whose full name appears on both seals. It is dated, however, 1106 h. (1694 a.d.)
or four years earlier than the seal of our manuscript. The fact that it is still in use in 1118 h. (1706 a.d.) is not in itself surprising, and is further interesting in that it points to the use of more than one seal by Muhammad Bäkir from mo h. on. It would therefore seem, from the use of his seals on royal manuscripts, that he was officially connected with the royal library, either as chief librarian or as one very close to that official. He does not seem to have been limited to administrative duties, for we find him composing “a popular treatise on the defects and doubts which invalidate the legal prayer according to Shfa practice.” This work, undated, is dedicated to Shäh Husain.17
Taking the two notes together it seems safe to infer that Muhsin ibn ‘Ali Khän was likely a subordinate employee in the royal library, and that Muhammad Bäkir, as a royal librarian, was having the seal-stamped notation made in accordance with Shäh Husain’s order. The dates in the two notes agree, and furthermore Muharram mo h. (10 July-9 Au- gust, 1698 a.d.) is actually the first month of the fifth Hijra regnal year of Shäh Husain, his julüs or coronation having taken place on the 14th Dhû al-Hijah, 1105 h. (August 5 or 6, 1694 a.d.).18 This note would therefore give us, not the date of the writing of the manuscript, but that of its acquisition by the royal library. The note furthermore runs across several nar- row strips of paper pasted over cracks in the wooden sheet, from which fact it seems safe to conclude that at the time of the writing of the note, the manuscript itself was of considerable age, old enough anyway to need much patching. So far as the scripts go, the writing of the manuscript could be thrown back to the fifteenth century, when the new Persian nastaliq largely replaced the tadik script.19
Another possible clue to a more certain dating lay in determining the age of the wood. With this object in view Mr. Frank Herbert Blackburn, a student of such problems, photo- graphed several of the sheets; but owing to the thinness and the longitudinal cut of the wood, he reports his results were disappointing, in fact, nil.
15 Cf. Simsar, op. cit., pp. 92-93.
16 This Muhammad Bâkir al-Husainï must not be confused with the Muhammad Bâkir ibn Ismâ‘ïl al- Husainï al-Khâtùnâbâdï. who is the writer of the wakf document referred to above, either as the actual drafter of the document or as the calligrapher, or very likely as both. Mr. Simsar {op. cit., p. 92), who supplied me with this latter Muhammad Bäkir’s full name, refers to him as a “famous calligrapher,” apparently on the strength of this wakf document alone, since a request by letter for the source of his information brought back in reply, “He
was an accomplished calligrapher, as this manuscript in his handwriting reveals.”
17 C. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in
the British Museum (London, 1879), I, 27, where his full name is given as:<ûJi” -U*»,
(jUaLj
18 Poole, op. cit., pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.
19 C. Huart, op. cit., p. 207. The naskhï script is sev- eral centuries older than the nastaliq.
94
NABIA ABBOTT
Still another possible clue now lies in gaining a better knowledge of the practice of the art of writing on wood, especially in Islamic times and countries. Writing on tree bark, on wooden “slips,” 20 and on wooden tablets is of course an ancient and well-known practice, but writing a continuous manuscript on extremely thin sheets of wood seems to be — so far as can be gathered from my recent and unsuccessful search — neither ancient nor well known. Mr. Flesser was informed at the time of the purchase of this manuscript that one other wooden manuscript was known to be in the mosque of Rizâ 'Al! at Mashhad.21 Mr. Tahsin Öz, director of the Topkapu Sarayi Miizesi, Istanbul, writes me that they have no wooden manuscripts in that museum, and that he is unaware of the existence of such manuscripts in any other museum or library. But he adds: “However, a good many years ago someone from Azerbayjan offered to our museum for sale a Koran written in this wise. It was incomplete, and many leaves were broken, but the writing was very fine, although written on wood.” Information from others who know of such manuscripts and who can throw any light on this particular branch of the art of writing on wood will be welcome. In the meantime it seems justifiable to infer that such wooden manuscripts were rare even at the time of their origin, and that they were regarded, even then, more as curios than as specimens of a widespread and flourishing art.
The presentation of such a Kur’änic manuscript as a gift to Shäh Husain seems appro- priate, for notwithstanding his moral degeneracy 22 he was something of a scholar and a theo- logian himself, much attached to the reading of the Kur’än — so much so, that his efforts in these lines earned for him the titles of “the meek zealot,” and the “Mullah Husain.”23 His appreciation of the gift is to be measured by the fifty ashrafi gold coins he bestowed on the donor.
20 Cf. M. Aurel Stein, Innermost Asia (Oxford, 1928), I, 215, 415, 424 (and index) for these slips dating as far back as the first century b.c.; the thinnest slip recorded is one-twelfth of an inch in thickness (ibid., p. 424, T. XLIII, i .03). See also E. E. Chavannes, Les documents chinois découverts par Aurel Stein (Oxford, 1913), pp. iii, viii-ix, for the use of these wooden “slips” in Turkestan and in China in the fourth century a.d. It is interesting to note that, despite the thickness of these slips, some
were actually grouped and tied or bound together, thus giving us a sort of a wooden book.
21 The Fihrist Kutub Kitâbkhânah (Mashhad, 1926), a Persian catalogue of this library, refers to the large Kur’änic manuscript collection (p. 5), which, however, it does not catalogue.
22 Hanway, op. cit., Ill, 30-31, 208.
23 Browne, op. cit., IV, 1 13-14. Cf. Sykes, op. cit., II, 214.
Fig. i — Tomb of Sher Shah. Sasaram, Dt. Shahabad, Bihar
Fig. 2 — Tomb of Hassan Sur Shah, Sasaram, Dx. Shahabad, Bihar
NOTES
S HER SHAH’S MAUSOLEUM AT SASARAM
Although the Taj Mahal is renowned through- out the world as the most beautiful monument of Indian architecture, many connoisseurs regard the mausoleum of Sher Shah at Sasaram in Bihar as superior to it. No doubt, Sasaram is at a considerable disadvantage in comparison with the Taj Mahal, since the latter is situated in the vicinity of a capital of the Mughal Empire, second in importance only to Delhi, and is surrounded by the traditional glory of many centuries, while the Sasaram tombs have almost to the present day been half-forgotten in the soli- tude of a quiet country town. Though they are so near the great railway artery from Benares to Gaya and Calcutta that one can see their cupolas from the window of the railway carriage, most of the trains do not stop at the small station, where one has difficulty even in storing baggage, and the drive is over Indian field paths, seated on a primitive Indian ekka, until the buildings are reached. Nor can they vie with the costliness of marble and intarsia mosaics which astonish the naïve visitor to the Taj Mahal, as their embellishment is restricted to a few friezes of decorative inscriptions and some almost vanished ornaments made of glazed tiles. Their beauty consists in that simple but absolute harmony of proportions and that monumentality of ex- pression which have again become the ideal of modern architecture.
Much has been written about the beautiful harmony of the Taj Mahal. From a theoretical point of view this cannot be gainsaid, but, though it impresses one as really wonderful, there always remains a feeling of uneasiness. The Taj Mahal is a hybrid. This most Indian monument is perhaps as un-Indian a design as has ever been materialized in India, for the Taj Mahal represents rather the Turkish aspirations of Shah Jahan, that most pronounced legitimist of all the Mughal emperors. It represents the same ideals as does his war for the reconquest of the ancestral capitals Samarkand and Bukhara, or
the many paintings of his court studios proclaim- ing the fame of Tamerlane and his dynasty.
The Taj Mahal is the architecture of Samar- kand transferred to Indian soil. Its central dome and cupola are an imitation of Tamerlane’s tomb; the galleries and iwans supporting this dome are very typical of the style of Turkestan and Persia; but the transposition of the Tur- kestani style to the Indian taste did not com- pletely succeed. The combination of the cupola and the iwans is incomplete and results in a cer- tain lack of unity in the general impression, and creates a feeling of restlessness. The sweet, feminine refinement of the marble plates does not harmonize with the masculine severity of a nomad style needing the robust vivacity of the glazed tile. It is in spite of these shortcomings that the singular distinction and refinement of the Taj Mahal elevates its beauty into being one of the wonders of the world.
Sher Shah’s mausoleum is the most pronounced possible contrast to the Taj Mahal. There is nothing of the feminine refinement, the delicacy of decoration, the costliness of materials, em- bodying the splendor of a luxurious rule firmly established for more than a century and looking back on a dynastic tradition of a quarter mil- lennium. Sasaram is the creation of a usurper dynasty, of a stern and genial soldier, and with his death its glory passed.
Sher Shah was the son of an Afghan soldier in the service of the Lodi sultans of Delhi. Sasaram and Khawaspur in the Shahabad District of Bihar had been the family fief since Hassan Sur, the father, had come from Hissar-Firoza near Delhi. For Sher Shah it was more — it was the very symbol of his life and of his glory.
There is a curious connection between Sasa- ram and the rise of this little Afghan noble to the imperial throne of India. It was at Sasaram that in 15 n young Farid — this was his original name — as representative of his father first tried the administrative reforms which made him one of the most beneficent and important rulers of India. It was because of Sasaram that he had
NOTES
98
to flee from the paternal home, expelled at the instigation of a stepmother who wished to see the fief in the possession of her own son, Sulai- man. It was for the recovery of Sasaram that he was drawn into the party struggles of the declining Lodi empire, that in 1529 he finally returned as deputy governor of the new Mughal dynasty. It was for the possession of Sasaram against the partisans of his stepbrother Sulaiman that he had to organize his own party. In the then-ensuing struggle between the Mughal em- pire of Humayun and the Afghan kingdom of Bengal Sher Khan rapidly rose to the position of virtual ruler of Bihar (1534), the crowned Shah of Bengal (1539), the restorer of the Afghan power (1540), the ruler over the whole of northern India, Bengal, Hindustan, Punjab, Sindh, and Rajputana (1544), when he met his death through an explosion before Fort Kalin jar (1545). He never saw Sasaram again — it is not even certain whether he was buried in his mau- soleum, for his badly mutilated body was buried at Ladgarh near Kalinjar, and historians dis- agree as to whether his coffin was later trans- ferred to his native town.
In the midst of all these campaigns Sher Shah had found time to initiate a remarkable building activity. In his family fief his own tomb and that of his father, Hassan, were erected, to which later on was added the never-finished mausoleum of his successor, the fickle and debauched Islam Shah. In Delhi he began the laying out of a new capital of which only the fort, Purana Kila, and the Masdjid-i Djämk were completed. A strong fort was constructed at Rohtas in the Punjab, and a mosque in Patna. The mosque of Purana Kila, called “Qila-kuhna,” has aroused the en- thusiasm of many archaeologists, being the final accomplishment of the Indo-Muhammedan Pa- than style and the precursor of the art of the Mughals up to the years of Shah Jahangir. Sasaram, however, is the crown of Sher Shah’s buildings.
Sher Shah’s mausoleum is situated to the southwest of the town of Sasaram, in the middle
of an artificial pond, connecting with the em- bankment by means of a dam and bridge. Around it the country is arid, with isolated palm trees and vestiges of a circumvallation. Through a gateway one passes over the bridge and the dam, flanked by palm trees and shrubs, to a staircase leading to a quadrangular terrace, the corners of which bear beautiful pavillions; stair- cases lead down from each side of the terrace to the ghat.
The mausoleum itself is an octagonal build- ing, surrounded by a gallery of almost half its height and surmounted by a receding low cupola. The whole is extremely simple — only the ground floor shows three ogival arches on each side — and the decoration is restricted to the usual battlement frieze on the top of each story and floral knobs at the sides of the arches and on the cupolas. The enlivening element of this sober and stern architecture is the sixteen pavillions on the top of the gallery and around the cupola. Though they are quite simple, their vivid con- trasts of light and shadow create a feeling of ease and grace counterbalancing the heaviness of a cupola which, together with the supporting walls, seems to crush the arcades of the ground floor. The interior is of an unsurpassed sim- plicity, the doorways of the surrounding arcades (here with horizontal Hindu architraves) and a gallery connected with the pavillions outside be- ing the only ornaments; but they are dominated by the unique impression of the gigantic dome which is surpassed only by that of the Gol Gom- baz in Bijapur.
The two other tombs are of less interest. That of Hassan Khan in the middle of the present town has no pond but lies in the middle of a fortified garden. It is smaller, and there are no pavillions, only small cupolas on the tops of the surrounding arcades. The interior has no gal- lery, but only eight windows and a beautiful in- scription frieze along the base of the dome. The third mausoleum, to the northwest, on the other side of the railway, had been planned on a scale surpassing even that of Sher Shah’s tomb, and
NOTES
99
its decoration is the most elaborate of all the Sasaram buildings. But neither the pond nor the tomb itself has ever been finished; only the ground-floor story was half built when the work was stopped.
Sher Shah’s buildings may safely be regarded as the zenith of the so-called Pathan style of Indian art, that translation of the heavy sun- dried brick architecture of early Muhammedan Mesopotamia into the stone technique of the Hindu and Jaina temple-builders of medieval Rajput India. Their next relatives are the mosques of the Sharki Sultans at Jaunpur, a little provincial capital not far off, on the other side of the Ganges, to the northwest of Benares. Though the prototypes of these cupola tombs must be sought at Old Delhi — no example of such buildings existing at Jaunpur — Sasaram shares the characteristic features of structure and decoration of the Sharki architecture. It shares also that certain graciousness which even this heavy and gloomy style of a bloody age had brought forth. In this respect it foreshadows the new age of Mughal art under Akbar, in which the Pathan style was finally merged with new traditions from Central Asia and Rajputana. In the same way as the tradition of the mosque of Purana Kila is to be felt in the Grand Mosque of Fathpur Sikri, that of the Sasaram tombs is alive in the tomb of Isa Khan, near the mauso- leum of Humayun at Old Delhi.
But none of these monuments can surpass the sublime grandeur of Sher Shah’s tomb. There is a reserved distinction in its beauty, a disdain of ornamental embellishment rather extraordinary in this country, and a perfection based only on absolute harmony of lines, proportions, and shades of a national style come to its ripest form of expression. It is the very portrait of its builder; it has the character of a great empire builder and reformer, stern and strong, but benevolent and averse to unessential matters. The Taj Mahal is the creation of a dynasty still conscious of its foreign origin, Sasaram the zenith of the national Indo-Muhammedan art.
The Taj Mahal is the memorial of an extraordi- nary lady and of feminine graciousness, Sher Shah’s tomb the monument of an extraordinary man and of a great manly character.
Hermann Goetz
LA QUESTION DES FAIENCES DE LA CORNE D’OR
Le volume dMrs Islatnica (Vol. IV, 1937) qui commémoire le centenaire de PUniversité de Michigan, contient un article du regretté Rudolf M. Rief stahl sur les premiers revêtements turcs de faïences à Andrinople (“Early Turkish Tile Revetments in Edirne”), lequel constitue une contribution aussi importante qu’inédite à la connaissance de la céramique de Turquie.
Cette étude posthume donne à ses amis l’illu- sion qu’il est toujours au milieu d’eux.
Dans un travail signé conjointement avec G. Migeon (La céramique d’Asie Mineure et de Constantinople du XIIIe au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1923, p. 32), j’avais cru pouvoir identifier avec la production de la Corne d’Or, dont parle Evliya Celebï, des fragments de pièces de forme à décor bleu, mis au jour par les travaux de terrassement consécutifs aux grands incendies de Stamboul du commencement du siècle.
Deux considérations avaient été déterminantes dans cette localisation à Stamboul et au seizième siècle de ce type de fragments: leur extrême fréquence dans le sous-sol de Stamboul, et ce fait qu’un petit motif qui les caractérise se re- trouve sur un toughra de Sulaimân le Magnifique,
Riefstahl, dont la belle étude fait une large place aux revêtements à décor bleu du quinzième siècle, qu’il est le premier à faire connaître, estime que ces fragments (dont j’ai vu comme lui un spécimen en