Compare and contrast Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi and Khirbat al-Mafjar.

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Naomi Powell

Compare and contrast Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi and Khirbat al-Mafjar.

Between 661 and 750AD, the Umayyad Caliphate ruled the Muslim world. During their reigns, Umayyad Caliphs would often build themselves lavish ‘desert palaces’, several of which are still standing today. The uses of the palaces varied, and some believe the Umayyads built them to get away from the new urban central lifestyle set about by the Byzantine Empire (Hoag, 1979: 17). The Umayyad style of architecture is an interesting and luxurious one, as it takes its key styles directly from several other cultures, for example several Roman, Byzantine and Sassanian elements are often seen (Hoag, 1975: 20). Two important buildings when looking at Umayyad architecture are Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi and Khirbat al-Mafjar. These so-called ‘desert palaces’ of the Umayyads help us to gain an understanding of what secular Muslim architecture was like at the time.

Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi was built around 726AD by the Caliph Hisham, and was built on what is thought to be the site of a Ghassanid monastery, parts of which still remain within the newer structure. The location is in a very fertile land, and the Ghassanid would have been able to farm here to sustain themselves. Though the palace lies on a key caravan route between Palmyra and Damascus, it is still thought to have been built very much for the Caliph’s pleasure (remains have been found of a mosque, caravanserai, and small bath house) rather than for trade links, and is exquisitely decorated (Ball, 1994: 229). Despite having a rather fortress-like appearance, the fact that it is only made from mud-brick and the decorative plasterwork show that it was in fact just a palace. This decoration is in fact the first example found of decorative plasterwork in Islamic architecture.

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Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi is a fine example of the important use of styles from other cultures in Umayyad architecture, having been built with purely Sassanian techniques, but with the appearance of a Roman or Byzantine building. The most popular suggestion for why Umayyad architecture features such an array of different building techniques is that the Umayyads adopted the styles from the lands and cultures they had conquered, and conscripted their labour from outside of Syria to realise their plans (Hillenbrand, 1999: 35). An important feature showing this collection of styles in Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi are its floor paintings, which bring ...

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