Islamic palace architecture in the Western Mediterranean : a history

385 Pages·2017·13.951 MB·English

by  Arnold, Felix

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Islamic Palace Architecture in
the Western Mediterranean
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Islamic Palace
Architecture in the
Western Mediterranean
A HISTORY
FELIX ARNOLD
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Chronology of the Islamic West ix
Glossary of Arabic and Spanish Terms xi
Introduction xiii
1. The Formative Period (650– 900 CE) 1
2. The Age of the Great Caliphates (900– 1000 CE) 36
3. The Age of Diversity and Disintegration (1000– 1100 CE) 122
4. The Great Reform Empires (1100– 1250 CE) 178
5. The Epigones of Empire (1250– 1500 CE) 219
6. Early Modern Period (1500– 1800 CE) 298
Conclusion: Concepts of Space and Rulership in the Islamic West 316
Image Sources 325
Bibliography 327
Index 349
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Acknowledgments
The idea for this book originated in a scholarship I received from the German
Archaeological Institute in 2000 to study the domestic architecture of Islamic
Spain. I was subsequently able to study two examples of palatial architecture
in detail, first the palace on the Alcazaba of Almería (2001–2 004), then the
country estate ar- Rummāniya at Córdoba (2006– 2014). I thank the successive
presidents of the German Archaeological Institute, Helmut Kyrieleis, Hermann
Parzinger, Hans- Joachim Gehrke, and Friederike Fless, and in particular the
directors of the department in Madrid, Thilo Ulbert and Dirce Marzoli, for their
continual support. The funding for the fieldwork was provided by the German
Archaeological Institute, the German Foreign Office, and the Gerda- Henkel
Stiftung. Without this assistance the projects would not have been possible.
As important to their success was the close collaboration with Spanish col-
leagues. A complete list of collaborators, colleagues, and friends who contrib-
uted to this work would not be possible. Let me only mention here Christian
Ewert (d. 2006) in Madrid, Patrice Cressier, Ángela Suarez Marquéz, and
Lorenzo Cara Barrionuevo at Almería, and Alberto Canto García, José Escudero,
Juan Murillo Redondo, and Antonio Vallejo Triano at Córdoba. I also profited
greatly from discussions with many colleagues across Spain, including Antonio
Almagro Gorbea, Julio Navarro Palazón, and Antonio Orihuela Uzal in Granada
and Alberto León Muñoz in Córdoba. The fieldwork was made possible by kind
permission of the Junta de Andalucía.
A first draft of this book was written in German as part of a Habilitation at
the Technical University at Munich. I thank my supervisors, Manfred Schuller,
Lorenz Korn, and Dorothée Sack, for their support in this endeavor. In the
preparation of some of the drawings I was assisted by Santiago Morán, made
possible through funding by the German Archaeological Institute. The German
Archaeological Institute also enabled me to visit many of the palaces in Spain,
Portugal, Morocco, and Sicily. The photographs published here were taken on
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viii Acknowledgments
these trips, some by my father, Dieter Arnold. Over the years I have profited
greatly from the ongoing discussion in the research cluster “Political Spaces” of
the German Archaeological Institute, especially from discussions with Heinz
Beste, Gerda von Bülow, Alexandra Busch, Rudolf Haensch, Ulrich Thaler, and
Ulrike Wulf- Rheidt.
The present version of the book was written in the spring of 2015 at
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. I thank the trustees of Harvard University
for granting me a fellowship for this period. I also wish to thank my colleagues
at Dumbarton Oaks for their inspiration and support. Special thanks go to those
who took the time to read parts of my manuscript critically— Dorothea Arnold,
D. Fairchild Ruggles, Anja Schoeller- Schletter, and Gregory Williams. All errors
in facts and interpretations remain my own, of course.
Washington, D.C., May 2015
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Chronology of the Islamic West
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