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The Metal Doors in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and Their Source of Inspiration

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The Metal Doors in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and Their Source of Inspiration 1526-08_ECA_5(2008)_07 10-06-2009 14:54 Pagina 87 ECA 5 (2008), p. 87-121; doi: 10.2143 / ECA.5.0.2036221 Panels and Rosettes: The Metal Doors in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and Their Source of Inspiration Luitgard MOLS* In the next place we went to see the church of this period8. Today we have evidence of only seven St. John the Baptist, now converted into a mosque1, decorated metalwork doors, each of late Mamluk or and held too sacred for Christians to enter, or almost to look into. However we had three short * The author would like to thank Mat Immerzeel for his valu- views of it, looking in at three several gates. Its gates able comments and references. are vastly large, and cover’d with brass, stampt all 1 The mosque referred to is the Umayyad Mosque in over with Arab characters, and in several places Damascus. It was built on the site where the Church of St John was located, which before had been occupied by with the figure of a chalice, suppos’d to be the the Roman Temple of Jupiter. For an overview of the vari- ancient sign or arms of the Mamelukes (Pl. 1)2. ous religious buildings previously constructed on the site of the Umayyad Mosque in the heart of the bustling commer- This vivid description of the metalwork doors in cial area of Damascus, see Creswell/Allan 1989, 46-51. 2 Maundrell 1963, 169. the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, erected 3 For a comprehensive analysis of the construction of the between 87-96 A.H./705-715 A.D., was given by Umayyad Mosque, see Creswell/Allan 1989, 46-72. Henry Maundrell who visited the city on his jour- 4 In 1663, Thévenot made the following observation: ‘En ney from Aleppo to Jerusalem in 16973. It came face de cette cour est le portail de la mosquée, dans laque- lle on entre par douze belles grandes portes de cuivre fig- some 34 years after the western traveller Thévenot urées en bosse avec plusieurs colonnes, la pluspart de por- had displayed his appreciation of the same doors phyre, dont les chapiteaux sont dorez.’ (Thévenot 1663, (Pl. 2)4. They were not the first western travellers 463). His reference is more detailed than the general remark to point to metalwork objects in Damascus of by the early sixteenth-century traveller Ludivico di Varthema, who merely refers to them as ‘four principal beautiful make. Others had already expressed their doors of metal’. For the latter remark, see Badger 1863, 12. admiration for the highly developed craft of met- 5 For Sigoli’s remark on the inlaying technique, see Bellorini alworking in the second capital of the Mamluk et al. 1948, 182. For Brocquière’s praise for the technique Empire in Mamluk times (1250-1517), such as of burnishing blades in Damascus, see Wright 1848, 304. 6 This was expressed by the travellers Frescobaldi and Sigoli Simone Sigoli’s ventured esteem of the Damascene who visited Damascus in 1384. For their remarks, see craftsmen mastering the technique of the inlaying Bellorini et al. 1948, 86, 182. of basins and pitchers with gold and silver in 1384 7 Poggibonsi 1945, 77, travelling to Damascus on his jour- and Bertrandon de la Brocquière’s praise for the ney between 1346 and 1350, mentioned a staggering num- ber of metalworkers active in the city of Damascus, i.e. manufacture of damascened burnished blades 70.000 goldsmiths and money changers who worked in in 14325. According to some travellers the high gold and silver, and 24.000 craftsmen working in copper. technical perfection of the workmanship was caused On the presence of master craftsmen working in base and by the hereditary organisation of the crafts in precious metals in Damascus in between 1400 and 1401 as reported by B. de Mignanelli in his Vita Tamerlani, medieval Damascus, in which knowledge and see Fischel 1956, 226. That the industry was still thriving expertise was passed on from generation to genera- in the late fifteenth century is suggested by the traveller tion6. Others were clearly impressed by the bazaars Meshullam ben R. Menahem who mentions the existence and the number of skilled and specialised metal- of four large bazaars in Damascus, one of which specialised in goods of brass inlaid with gold and silver. For the latter, 7 workers working in them . see Adler 1930, 199. In contrast to the city’s renown for the metal- 8 Partly, this lack can be accounted for by the loss of a large working craft in Mamluk times, extant religious number of buildings that were erected in Damascus in the buildings in Damascus originating in the Mamluk Mamluk period. Meinecke 1992, II, p. VII, lists a total of 163 newly built public and religious constructions in this period remain curiously devoid of metalwork period of which now only 57 remain. None of these deco- objects that can still with certainty be attributed to rated metalwork housedoors come from the Mamluk period. 87 1526-08_ECA_5(2008)_07 10-06-2009 14:54 Pagina 88 early Ottoman make. They are part of the group of The bronze plaques on the wooden supports in the embossed doors that Maundrell and Thévenot north and east wall give the impression to be much referred to in their writings and that were made for more feeble and thinner. This discrepancy cannot be the Umayyad Mosque to replace older specimens. explained by the time frame in which the two sets Six of them still remain in their original location, of doors were manufactured, for the pairs of smaller and all of them are of a design that is characterized doors in both the east and the west wall were man- by its subdivision into panels, hence the name pan- ufactured in the second decade of the fifteenth cen- elled type9. Within Damascus they are the only tury, only a year apart. embellished Mamluk metalwork doors that still sur- Irrespective of the anomaly in the use of metal, vive in the context for which they were originally these seven doors share a number of communali- made. It is remarkable that these doors are not ties13. All of them have a wooden support onto related in design or make to what was fashionable which bronze plaques, either flat or embossed, are for Mamluk metalwork doors in Cairo, Jerusalem, nailed that cover the entire surface. Both casting or Aleppo in the same period. The question arises and hammering in repoussé were used for the relief why the patrons chose a unique type of metalwork plaques, casting being preferred for those decorative doors exclusive to this building and what the rea- motifs that were needed in larger quantities such as sons would have been for their implementation? the rosettes (Pl. 10) or for the names of the patrons Were they modelled upon known Islamic forerun- that were repeated on a single door. Unique inscrip- ners executed in materials other than metal or was tions such as a Quranic verse or a dedicatory text inspiration found in earlier Byzantine prototypes? with a date (Pl. 11) were executed in the hammer- ing technique. The panelled doors that are still extant were installed All the rectangular doors are composed of two in the exterior walls of the mosque between 1405 leaves, each leaf being subdivided into slightly and 1527, at times when older specimens had to be recessed rectangular or square panels placed one replaced owing to fires or civil unrest10. Today, the above the other, their number varying from three remaining metalwork doors are installed in three to five. On some of these doors panels of identical walls only: two smaller ones (Pls 3, 4) flanking a shape and size were placed below each other (see huge door (Pl. 5) in the west wall, two small ones Pl. 9) while on others a more varied division was (Pls 6, 7) in the east wall flanking a renewed wooden created by alternating rectangular panels with door that before the fire of 1893 was still covered oblong bands (see Pl. 8 especially). Irrespective of with bronze (Pl. 8)11, while one metal plaited door this subdivision, a symmetrical arrangement was still remains in the north wall (Pl. 9). The impact on aspired on each of these doors. the viewer differs markedly: those in the west wall The panels on the majority of the doors are display a robustness that the other extant ones do internally subdivided into smaller compartments, not, a robustness that is evidently linked to the distributed either in horizontal registers (Pl. 12) or thickness of the metalwork used on these doors12. in crosswise sections with a strong centrifugal focus (Pl. 13). Irrespective of the interior subdivision, the main decorative repertoire is made up of epigraphy, 9 An appendix comprising statements from medieval Arabic blazons and rosette-like protrusions that come in a sources concerning these doors in the pre-Mamluk and variety of shapes, their petals spiked, round or Mamluk period can be found below. whirling. Flat and undecorated sheets fill the gaps 10 Nu’aymi 1951, II, 403-404, translated by Sauvaire 1896, 219-220. between the ornamental ones. These plain sheets 11 Of this door only a few plaques remain, which are recorded serve simultaneously as a kind of background from in a guidebook to the National Museum of Damascus by which the other plaques stand out in relief. Only Hasani 1930, 64-68. 12 This contradicts the observation by Allan (1984, 88-89), two doors, namely the small doors flanking the por- who observed a general meanness to the use of metalwork tal in the west wall, differ in this respect from the on these doors that could indicate a scarcity of money or others in that their panels are adorned with one metal, or both.
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