Images from World History:
Syria under the Ummayads and `Abbasids (7-11th c. A.D.)
The Ummayad era (661-750 A.D.)
1. The Ummayad castle of Quseir `Amra, on a desert caravan road and 100 km. east of Amman, Jordan, was
built sometime after 711 A.D. Its interior frescoes represent the largest collection of early Islamic wall paintings.
The castle was originally protected by a small square fortress and a watchtower on a nearby hill. The building
had three parts: a detached hydraulic center (a deep well, pump room for an animal-driven pump, and water
storage tank), an audience hall, and connected to it a bath. Water was used to satisfy the thirst
of travellers, to supply a caldarium, and supply an air freshening system in the audience hall.
2. Quseir `Amra castle audience hall interior. Two transverse arches divide the audience hall into three naves
of equal width - a design that is not Byzantine, but Sassanid, although Byzantine influences can be seen in
some of the grape-vine frescos. It is possible that Quseir `Amra was the castle of the Amir Walid II (743-44 A.D.),
noteworthy for his love of wine, music, and dance. The amirs were Arab military governors
set up by the Ummayad dynasty as it expanded in defense of the Rightly-Guided Community (a struggle
called the jihad).
3. Audience hall transverse arch fresco from Quseir `Amra castle. Female holding a plate of food for a feast.
The audience hall was evidently much used for feasting, but the feast served an essentially political purpose,
for it helped draw the warrior élite to its aristocratic leader, the amir, by creating
opportunities for direct personal contact and for jpgt exchange. Walid may have cultivated his reputation
as a lover of wine, women and song for its political benefits.
4. Quseir `Amra fresco. In the audience hall is this fresco of a woman reclining on a sofa and wearing bracelets
and torques. Her right hand seems to be welcoming visitors to the feast. This would be a familiar theme in both
Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world. At the left, Victory presents her with a wreath, suggesting she
enjoyed some political importance (Walid II divorced his wife to pursue the beautiful Salma, but her family
would hear nothing of it).
5. Quseir `Amra castle fresco on northern arch: a flute and a lute player who are accompanying a beautiful
dancer, not seen here. Other pleasures are displayed: a hunt, lovers embracing in an erotic posture; dancers
and courtesans. These frescos show the influence of Late Roman art, but they also are likely to be political
propaganda very much aimed at the present, for feudal political bonds were based on an appeal to private
interest, and in the desert, Quseir `Amra must have seemed a paradise to the warriors who visited it.
6. Quseir `Amra castle fresco: detail from a desert hunting scene in which beaters drive the game into a net.
Sassanid cultural influence, which was profound in this region, associated hunting with royalty. A local amir
might not have realized the ideological implication of hunt scenes. The area outlined in white shows the
condition of the fresco before it was cleaned of soot.
7. Quseir `Amra castle. Fresco of a bathing women at the edge of her tub, standing in a Venus pose. She is
assisted by a servant and watched by courtesans on the balcony. Off to the right are male wrestlers and
gymnasts. In pastoral societies, women were often elevated to a status equal to that of their consorts. Later
on in Moslem society, due to the influence of the Sassanid tradition, women were placed under special protection
and secluded.
8. Quseir `Amra castle fresco of camel carrying dressed stone from a quarry. Most of the frescos reflect
an aristocratic world and its political environment. Represented in the frescos are the Byzantine emperor,
Visigothic King Roderick of Iberia, the Negus of Ethiopia; Shah-an-shah Khrosroes of the Sassinid Empire;
and perhaps a Turkish Qan and the Huang Di of China. In contrast, the relatively unsophisticated Carolingians
of Western Europe at the time were only aware of those neighboring peoples who directly affected them.
Some 32 frescoes, on the other hand, reflect the work of artisans:
the quarrying and trimming of stone in a quarry, the transportation of the stone by camel caravan, and
the laying of stone to build a wall. Also shown are blacksmiths, carpenters and masons. It is often said that
feudal society tended to see a positive value in labor, while in the ancient life, its representation was often
merely a rural idyl or meaningful only as the social environment of a political power. Like the feudal notion
of labor, the jihad, which combined alienation from home (social reproduction), and struggle
(personal development), was a means of personal salvation.
9. Quseir `Amra castle. Detail of a fresco in the tepidarium. The subject is probably from the myth of Dionysius.
Evidently more than one artist was at work, for the castle's mosaics reflect somewhat different styles. This
one is more classical in its subject and aesthetic, and probably reflects the influence of Nabattaeans, who
conveyed Hellenistic techniques and iconography to the Byzantine cities of the Decapolis. The taste for
neo-hellenism may reflect the Moslem aristocracy's attempt to gain political legitimacy through an association
with Romanitas, but at the same time opposing the contemporary expression of that ethos by the
Christian Byzantine empire, whose relation with the Ummayads was antagonistic.
1. The Ummayad castle of Quseir `Amra, on a desert caravan road and 100 km. east of Amman, Jordan, was
built sometime after 711 A.D. Its interior frescoes represent the largest collection of early Islamic wall paintings.
The castle was originally protected by a small square fortress and a watchtower on a nearby hill. The building
had three parts: a detached hydraulic center (a deep well, pump room for an animal-driven pump, and water
storage tank), an audience hall, and connected to it a bath. Water was used to satisfy the thirst
of travellers, to supply a caldarium, and supply an air freshening system in the audience hall.
2. Quseir `Amra castle audience hall interior. Two transverse arches divide the audience hall into three naves
of equal width - a design that is not Byzantine, but Sassanid, although Byzantine influences can be seen in
some of the grape-vine frescos. It is possible that Quseir `Amra was the castle of the Amir Walid II (743-44 A.D.),
noteworthy for his love of wine, music, and dance. The amirs were Arab military governors
set up by the Ummayad dynasty as it expanded in defense of the Rightly-Guided Community (a struggle
called the jihad).
3. Audience hall transverse arch fresco from Quseir `Amra castle. Female holding a plate of food for a feast.
The audience hall was evidently much used for feasting, but the feast served an essentially political purpose,
for it helped draw the warrior élite to its aristocratic leader, the amir, by creating
opportunities for direct personal contact and for jpgt exchange. Walid may have cultivated his reputation
as a lover of wine, women and song for its political benefits.
4. Quseir `Amra fresco. In the audience hall is this fresco of a woman reclining on a sofa and wearing bracelets
and torques. Her right hand seems to be welcoming visitors to the feast. This would be a familiar theme in both
Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world. At the left, Victory presents her with a wreath, suggesting she
enjoyed some political importance (Walid II divorced his wife to pursue the beautiful Salma, but her family
would hear nothing of it).
5. Quseir `Amra castle fresco on northern arch: a flute and a lute player who are accompanying a beautiful
dancer, not seen here. Other pleasures are displayed: a hunt, lovers embracing in an erotic posture; dancers
and courtesans. These frescos show the influence of Late Roman art, but they also are likely to be political
propaganda very much aimed at the present, for feudal political bonds were based on an appeal to private
interest, and in the desert, Quseir `Amra must have seemed a paradise to the warriors who visited it.
6. Quseir `Amra castle fresco: detail from a desert hunting scene in which beaters drive the game into a net.
Sassanid cultural influence, which was profound in this region, associated hunting with royalty. A local amir
might not have realized the ideological implication of hunt scenes. The area outlined in white shows the
condition of the fresco before it was cleaned of soot.
7. Quseir `Amra castle. Fresco of a bathing women at the edge of her tub, standing in a Venus pose. She is
assisted by a servant and watched by courtesans on the balcony. Off to the right are male wrestlers and
gymnasts. In pastoral societies, women were often elevated to a status equal to that of their consorts. Later
on in Moslem society, due to the influence of the Sassanid tradition, women were placed under special protection
and secluded.
8. Quseir `Amra castle fresco of camel carrying dressed stone from a quarry. Most of the frescos reflect
an aristocratic world and its political environment. Represented in the frescos are the Byzantine emperor,
Visigothic King Roderick of Iberia, the Negus of Ethiopia; Shah-an-shah Khrosroes of the Sassinid Empire;
and perhaps a Turkish Qan and the Huang Di of China. In contrast, the relatively unsophisticated Carolingians
of Western Europe at the time were only aware of those neighboring peoples who directly affected them.
Some 32 frescoes, on the other hand, reflect the work of artisans:
the quarrying and trimming of stone in a quarry, the transportation of the stone by camel caravan, and
the laying of stone to build a wall. Also shown are blacksmiths, carpenters and masons. It is often said that
feudal society tended to see a positive value in labor, while in the ancient life, its representation was often
merely a rural idyl or meaningful only as the social environment of a political power. Like the feudal notion
of labor, the jihad, which combined alienation from home (social reproduction), and struggle
(personal development), was a means of personal salvation.
9. Quseir `Amra castle. Detail of a fresco in the tepidarium. The subject is probably from the myth of Dionysius.
Evidently more than one artist was at work, for the castle's mosaics reflect somewhat different styles. This
one is more classical in its subject and aesthetic, and probably reflects the influence of Nabattaeans, who
conveyed Hellenistic techniques and iconography to the Byzantine cities of the Decapolis. The taste for
neo-hellenism may reflect the Moslem aristocracy's attempt to gain political legitimacy through an association
with Romanitas, but at the same time opposing the contemporary expression of that ethos by the
Christian Byzantine empire, whose relation with the Ummayads was antagonistic.