
- 419 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
From the stony desolation of Jordan's desert, it is but a step through a doorway into the bath house of the Qusayr 'Amra hunting lodge. Inside, multicolored frescoes depict scenes from courtly life and the hunt, along with musicians, dancing girls, and naked bathing women. The traveler is transported to the luxurious and erotic world of a mid-eighth-century Muslim Arab prince. For scholars, though, Qusayr 'Amra, probably painted in the 730s or 740s, has proved a mirage, its concreteness dissolved by doubts about date, patron, and meaning. This is the first book-length contextualization of the mysterious monument through a compelling analysis of its iconography and of the literary sources for the Umayyad period. It illuminates not only the way of life of the early Muslim elite but also the long afterglow of late antique Syria.
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Maps and Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Preface
- 1. MUSIL'S FAIRY-TALE CASTLE
- 2. LUXURIES OF THE BATH
- 3. THE HUNT
- 4. "O GOD, BLESS THE AMĪR"
- 5. THE PRINCELY PATRON
- 6. MAINTAINING THE DYNASTY
- 7. THE SIX KINGS
- 8. A CAPTIVE SASANIAN PRINCESS
- 9. QUSAYR 'AMRA CONTEXTUALIZED
- 10. UMAYYAD SELF-REPRESENTATION
- Epilogue
- Appendix: The Value of Arabic Literary Sources
- Bibliography
- Index