Celebrating Thirty Years of Muqarnas
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Muqarnas An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World Celebrating Thirty Years of Muqarnas Editor Gülru Necipoğlu Managing Editor Karen A. Leal volume 30 Sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 25576 0 CONTENTS Gülru Necİpoğlu, Reflections on Thirty Years of Muqarnas . 1 Benedict Cuddon, A Field Pioneered by Amateurs: The Collecting and Display of Islamic Art in Early Twentieth-Century Boston . 13 Silvia Armando, Ugo Monneret de Villard (1881–1954) and the Establishment of Islamic Art Studies in Italy . 35 Ayşİn Yoltar-Yildirim, Raqqa: The Forgotten Excavation of an Islamic Site in Syria by the Ottoman Imperial Museum in t he Early Twentieth Century . 73 D. Fairchild Ruggles, At the Margins of Architectural and Landscape History: The Rajputs of South Asia . 95 Jennifer Pruitt, Method in Madness: Recontextualizing the Destruction of Churches in the Fatimid Era . 119 Peter Christensen, “As if she were Jerusalem”: Placemaking in Sephardic Salonica . 141 David J. Roxburgh, In Pursuit of Shadows: Al-Hariri’s Maqāmāt . 171 Abolala Soudavar, The Patronage of the Vizier Mirza Salman . 213 Lâle Uluç, An Iskandarnāma of Nizami Produced for Ibrahim Sultan . 235 NOTES AND SOURCES Serpİl Bağci, Presenting Vaṣṣāl Kalender’s Works: The Prefaces of Three Ottoman Albums . 255 Gülru Necİpoğlu, “Virtual Archaeology” in Light of a New Document on the Topkapı Palace’s Waterworks and Earliest Buildings, circa 1509 . 315 Ebba Koch, The Wooden Audience Halls of Shah Jahan: Sources and Reconstruction . 351 © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 25576 0 the TopkapI Palace’S WATERWORKS AND EARLIEST BUILDINGS, CIRCa 1509 315 GüLRU NECİPOğLU “Vi RtUaL aRChaEOLOGy” iN LiGht Of a NEW DOCUMENt ON thE tOPkaPi PaLaCE’S WatERWORkS aND EaRLiESt BUiLDiNGS, CiRCa 1509 t his article, which i dedicate to Dr. filiz Çağman, intro- horn, collected in the sixth-century Basilica Cistern duces an unpublished document concerning the water (yerebatan Sarayı). Because the kırkçeşme waters were distribution network of the topkapı Palace. Preserved lower than the main courts of the topkapı Palace, they in the topkapı Palace Museum archive, the document first filled wells before being lifted to the correct height examined here sheds light not only on the palace’s wa- by water wheels.2 terworks, but also on the locations and names of its another early source is the water distribution map earliest buildings (see appendix). it is undated, but as drawn in 1584 by the architect Davud (d. 1598), a former we shall soon see, certain clues in the text suggest that superintendent of imperial water channels. the map it was written immediately after the great earthquake of exists in two copies and shows the halkalı Channel’s 1509, known as the “Little apocalypse” (ḳıyāmet-i ṣuġrā). “imperial” (mīrī, also known as ḫāṣṣa or beylik) branch, the heading of the document reads: “Description of the up to the point where it reaches the Old Palace (eski fountains and water jet fountains, some of which have sarāy), built for Mehmed ii in the 1450s. an inscription been flowing since olden times and some of which were on the map indicates that since the reign of Mehmed added later” (Tafṣīl-i çeşmehā ve şādırvānhā ki baʿżı this branch had provided the waters of the “imperial pal- ḳadīmden aḳagelmişdür, ve baʿżı ṣoñradan olmışdur). ace” (sarāy-ı ʿāmire), namely, the topkapı Palace, con- this oldest written source on the hydraulic landscape structed by the same sultan between 1459 and 1478. (it of the topkapı Palace during the reigns of Mehmed was originally called the “New Palace” [yeñi sarāy], in ii (r. 1444–46; 1451–81) and his successor, Bayezid ii relation to the old one at the center of the city.) the (r. 1481–1512), lists the palace’s water towers, distribu- water carried by the imperial branch of the halkalı tion chambers, cisterns, water jet fountains, fountains, Channel entered the city from the Edirne Gate and and faucets. it thus elucidates the original layout of the passed over the fourth-century aqueduct of Valens palace complex in that period, confirming the hypo- (Bozdoğan kemeri, renovated by Mehmed ii) before thetical reconstruction proposed years ago in my dis- reaching a distribution chamber (maḳsem) located at a sertation and subsequent book on the subject.1 corner of the Old Palace’s walled enclosure. from here Of the documents published thus far on the water it was distributed to various other locations, including supplies of the topkapı Palace, the earliest dated the topkapı Palace. Unfortunately, the part of the map example is the distribution register (tevzīʿ defteri) of the showing the continuation of the channel’s imperial kırkçeşme and kağıthane waters that was prepared in branch to the topkapı Palace is absent.3 this missing 1568–69 (976) by the chief architect Sinan (d. 1588). the section of the conduit is, however, recorded in later kırkçeşme system, supplied from the Cebeciköy area, maps of the halkalı Channel dated 1607 (1016) and was renovated by Mehmed ii and further expanded by 1748 (1161), which indicate that its water flowed from a Sinan with new sources from the Belgrade forest. its water tower near hagia Sophia to other water towers waters, which entered the city from the gate of Eğrikapı and distribution chambers within the palace grounds and ran along steep slopes overlooking the Golden (fig. 1).4 © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 25576 0 316 GüLRU NECİPOğLU f ig. 1. hydraulic network of the topkapı Palace: detail from the map of the imperial (mīrī) branch of the halkalı Channel, dated 1161 (1748). istanbul, topkapı Palace Museum Library (tSMk), h. 1815. (Photo: courtesy of Ersu Pekin) the document under examination here records the itarian faucet. an explanation at the end of the list of rehabilitation of the topkapı Palace’s waterworks in the fountains reveals that the document was a petition pre- aftermath of the 1509 earthquake. Later, in the 1520s, the sented to an unnamed sultan in order to outline the pro- chief architect ʿalaüddin (d. 1539, nicknamed ʿacem posed distribution method and amount of water to be ʿali, or Persian ʿali) would reconfigure this hydraulic provided to each of the eighteen outlets. the author system when he renovated the palace complex to reflect may have been the chief of water channels (ser-rāh-ı āb, the changing notions of splendor that marked the reign ṣuyolcı başı), or the agha of the palace (sarāy aġası), who of Süleyman i (r. 1520–66).5 Our document is thus sig- was responsible for construction projects at the topkapı nificant for understanding the water distribution net- Palace.6 works of the palace before this far-reaching Süleymanic according to the document, the amount of “imperial rebuilding campaign. after the heading quoted above, water” (ḫāṣṣa ṣu) brought to the palace from afar mea- the document lists eighteen fountains of different types. sured ten lüles (a lüle being a spout or pipe of standard it should be noted at the outset that the term şādırvān, diameter, 73.58 millimeters, for measuring the amount though usually associated with ablution fountains, is and rate of waterflow). these ten lüles comprised six used here for water jet fountains that spout water into lüles and another four lüles of water, each amount basins, as opposed to regular fountains designated by brought to the palace by a different architect, whose the term çeşme, whose water flows from spigots. the identities will be discussed below. We learn that the six term muṣluḳ, on the other hand, denotes a simpler, util- lüles of water from an unspecified ayāzma (sacred © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 25576 0 the TopkapI Palace’S WATERWORKS AND EARLIEST BUILDINGS, CIRCa 1509 317 spring), which previously supplied the palace, was no Some of this water is [to be] distributed to its location longer sufficient. it is unclear whether these six lüles are [directly] from the water tower (terāzū) on the outside; the same as those mentioned above (as part of the ten and some of it comes from the outside water tower to a water tower in the vicinity of the timber frame Palace lüles), or whether they constituted an extra amount of (çatma sarāy) and is distributed thence; and some of it water, adding up to a total of sixteen lüles. it is more comes to a water tower in the vicinity of the Large Cham- probable, however, that only four lüles were added to ber (büyük oda) and is distributed thence; and some of it the former water supply, and that the old subterranean comes to a water tower in the vicinity of the fountain of the water channel carrying the six lüles was perhaps stables and is distributed thence. if approved by the Sub- renewed after being damaged during the 1509 earth- lime Command, let there be no intervention whatsoever to quake. the two conduits that brought the ten lüles of the [existing] water channels (ṣu yollarına), let the water be apportioned to each [tower’s] distribution chamber imperial water to the topkapı Palace were probably the (maḳsem) from the outside water tower, and after sufficient halkalı and kırkçeşme Channels, which in later periods water has reached the other water towers, it should be dis- conducted approximately the same amount of water to tributed from those water towers to each appointed place. the palace.7 and small lüle pipes should be installed so that, God willing, Because our document relates only the manner of the aforesaid quantity of water continually flows through distributing the ten lüles of water brought to the palace each of them.