Umayyad Building Techniques and the Merging of Roman-Byzantine and Partho-Sassanian Traditions: Continuity and Change

UMAYYAD BUILDING TECHNIQUES AND THE MERGING OF ROMAN-BYZANTINE AND PARTHO-SASSANIAN TRADITIONS: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

Ignacio Arce

Abstract

This paper analyses the introduction, merging and use of building mate- rials and techniques, architectural typologies and urban patterns, during the Umayyad period in Bilad al-Sham (present day Syria, Palestine and Jordan), within the general framework of the cultural interchange that took place in that period between eastern and western traditions. For most of its history, and especially in Antiquity, this was a frontier area, or a buffer zone in modern terms, between the main regional powers: Egypt and the successive Mesopotamian empires; Persia and Greece; the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms; Rome and Parthia; Byzantium and the Sassanians. As a result, it not only witnessed war, invasion and destruction, but also fruitful economic and cultural interchange. This frontier was lifted twice: ﬁ rst, during the reign of Alexander, and, secondly with the rise of Islam.

Introduction

After a military campaign launched against the Emperor Phocas in A.D. 607, the Sassanians over-ran the Limes Arabicus in 611 and ravaged the north of Syria. In 614, they captured Palestine and Jerusalem, carrying off the Holy Cross as war booty to their capital, Ctesiphon. Shortly after, they captured Egypt. It took the newly-proclaimed emperor, Heraclius, until 622 to react and raise an army to recover these lost but vital territories. He reached the heart of the Sassanian Empire in 628, from which he brought back the plundered relics, and regained Jerusalem two years later. The weakening of the eastern frontier had started a century earlier when, during the reign of Justinian, the army abandoned the fortiﬁ ca- tions built along the Limes Arabicus. In their place, local, Christianised

L. Lavan, E. Zanini, and A. Sarantis (edd.) Technology in Transition A.D. 300–650 (Late Antique Archaeology 4 – 2006) (Leiden 2007), pp. 491–537 492 ignacio arce

Arab tribes—at fi rst the Banu Salih and, afterwards, the Ghassanids—were entrusted with its defence, as foederati of Byzantium.1 The subsequent long-lasting wars, religious confl icts and political crises induced insta- bility and general unrest in Late Roman Syria, which was worsened under the despotic reign of Phocas and would never be fully resolved. For these reasons, Islamic expansion encountered almost no resistance; Byzantium was still weak, even after regaining the territories lost to the Persians, whilst the defeated Sassanian kingdom had barely survived. The fate of Bilad al-Sham was sealed in A.D. 636 at Yarmuk. Meso- potamia and Persia surrendered after the battle of Qadisiyyah in 636. The fi nal defeat of the Sassanian kingdom followed a few years later, in 642, at Nahawand near Merv. The last Shah, Yezdigird III, was assassinated in 651. Thus, following the Arab conquests, the frontier between the two ‘superpowers’ of the antique Middle East, between the East and the West, ceased to exist. The area now became the centre and capital of the new Umayyad power for about a century. Byzantium would recover and become the sole power opposing the advance of Islam in Anatolia, whilst the Sassanian Empire disappeared forever. This political and military context helps us to understand the success of the emergent Muslim power under the fi rst ‘orthodox’ and, subsequent, Umayyad, Caliphs, and the references and models adopted and developed by their new culture thereafter. As I will discuss below, these affected all aspects of the cultural life of this new society, in particular, the development of architecture and urbanism.

A New Image of Power

Throughout history, rising powers have caused the downfall of other consolidated, highly-developed empires. They have subsequently imi- tated, adapted and transformed the pre-existing cultures of their prede- cessors. The new Umayyad Caliphate had both the Byzantine and the Sassanian empires to draw upon; an ambiguous situation that would eventually create political and administrative confusion in, for instance, the bureaucratic system: in Syria, Greek was the ofﬁ cial language, while

1 Similarly, the Sassanians relied on the Lakhmids for the defence of their desert frontier.