Qusair ʿAmra
Qusair ʿAmra ( Arabic قصير عمرة, DMG Quṣair ʿAmra , Small Palace of ʿAmra ') belongs to the desert castles and is a kind of hunting lodge , about 70 km east of Amman in the Jordanian desert, from the early eighth century, probably built by the Umayyad prince al-Walid ibn Yazid , the later caliph al-Walid II. The word Qasr ( Arabic القصر, DMG al-qaṣr ), which these buildings often have in their names, means “castle, fortress”. Qusair 'Amra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985 .
description
Qusair 'Amra consists of a throne room and a Roman style bath. The rooms are quite small for a palace and suggest only short stays. What is special about the Qusair 'Amra, however, is the rich wall painting , which is still partially present even after 1300 years, but has suffered greatly from vandalism and improper handling in the last few decades. When it was discovered by Alois Musil , an Austro-Hungarian orientalist, in 1898, however, copies of the wall paintings were made and thus preserved for posterity, albeit in an inadequate manner.
During renovation work in 2012, a Kufic inscription was discovered above a window , naming al-Walid ibn Yazid without a caliphate. It is therefore believed that he had the castle built as a prince during the reign of his uncle Hischam (724-743).
Wall paintings
The wall paintings are real frescoes , i. H. Paint applied damp that could affect the plastering of the masonry. This made it possible that despite the hot and humid air that was prevalent in the bath of Qusair 'Amra, the paintings have been preserved. The representations vary greatly and there is no homogeneous theme, not even a predominant style. Representations can be seen as they are known from antiquity, as well as from Persian and Arabic art. Subjects are hunting, bathing scenes, undressed women, handicrafts, astral bodies, animals, acrobats, erotic scenes, as well as royal figures. They are distributed over all rooms and do not allow a final conclusion about their meaning. It should be noted, however, that these wall paintings are an important testament to early Islamic art as they are purely secular, i.e. H. do not have a religious character and thus also represent private life. They also show that the ban on making lifelike portraits was a later development of Islam.
literature
- Garth Fowden: Qusayr Amra. Art and the Umayyad elite in late antique Syria . Berkeley 2004.
- Alois Musil : Ḳuṣejr ʿAmra , Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Vienna: kk Hof- u. State printing house 1907
- Gaetano Palumbo, Angela Atzori (eds.): Qusayr 'Amra. Site Management Plan. Department of Antiquities of Jordan, Amman 2014
Web links
- Quasr Amra. A desert castle of the caliphs. SWR television, September 23, 2016
- Qusayr 'Amra. archnet.org
- Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- Desert Castles Tour (Universes in Universe - Worlds of Art)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archeology-online ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Cultural heritage: rock necropolis and ruins of Petra (1985) | Qusair ʿAmra desert castle (1985) | Umm er-Rasas archaeological site - Kastron Mefa'a (2004) | Baptism site “Bethany Beyond the Jordan” - Al-Maghtas (2015) |
Cultural / Natural Heritage: Wadi Rum Protected Area (2011)
Coordinates: 31 ° 48 ′ 10 ″ N , 36 ° 35 ′ 13 ″ E