Stéphane Pradines (ed.) Ports and Fortifications in the Muslim World Coastal Military Architecture from the Arab Conquest to the Ottoman Period Institut français d’archéologie orientale Fouilles de l’Ifao 85 – 2020 Contents Foreword and Greetings ............................................................................................................................... IX Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Keys to the Strait. Fortifications in the Strait of Gibraltar from Abū Ya ‘qūb Yūsuf to Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī (Martin Malcolm Elbl) ........................................................................................... 7 1.1. The Strait of Gibraltar “Keyworld” ........................................................................................................ 10 1.2. Ksar es-Seghir and Tangier: Voids and Re-Interpretations ................................................................... 13 1.3. The Atlantic “Key-Blade” ........................................................................................................................ 24 1.4. The Junction between “Key-Blades”: The Strait ..................................................................................... 28 1.5. The Other Side: The Alboran Sea ............................................................................................................ 32 1.6. Final Observations ................................................................................................................................... 34 2. Coastal Fortifications in 9th Century Tunisia and Egypt (Stéphane Pradines) .......................... 53 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 53 2.2. The Ifriqyian Ribāṭs ................................................................................................................................. 53 2.3. Did the Tunisian Ribāṭs Exist? ............................................................................................................... 56 2.4. Fustat, Capital of the River Nile ............................................................................................................. 57 2.5. The Nile Delta, from Alexandria to Farama ........................................................................................... 58 2.6. North African Byzantine or Mesopotamian Eastern influences? .......................................................... 62 2.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 64 VI ports and fortifications in the muslim world 3. Towards a Characterisation of Islamic Ports. Aylah as a Case-Study for Emporia-Building and Maritime Infrastructures in the Early Islamic Red Sea (650-1100 CE) (Kristoffer Damgaard) ..... 79 3.1. Aylah as a Case-Study .............................................................................................................................. 80 3.2. The Urban Landscape: Morphology, Infrastructure and Architecture ................................................. 81 3.3. The Artefact Horizon: Archaeological Markers of Trade and Identity ................................................. 86 3.4. Connectivity to Productive Hinterlands ................................................................................................ 88 3.5. “Core Characteristics” of Early Islamic Ports ........................................................................................ 91 4. The Mamluk Defence of the Levantine Coast (Mathias Piana) ..................................................... 103 4.1. Overview of the Sources .......................................................................................................................... 104 4.2. The Mamluk Conquest of the Coast ....................................................................................................... 106 4.3. The Places on the Levantine Coast during the Mamluk Period ............................................................ 107 4.4. The Mamluk Defence of the Levantine Coast ........................................................................................ 109 4.5. Fortifications in the Hinterland of the Coast ......................................................................................... 115 4.6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 117 5. Fortifications of Banbhore (Sind, Pakistan) (Nicolas Morelle) ....................................................... 131 5.1. Urban History of Banbhore ...................................................................................................................... 131 5.2. Fortification .............................................................................................................................................. 137 5.3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 145 6. False Cannons on Bharuch Barbican. A Fortified Custom House in an Active Port Town of Gujarat (16th Century Onwards) (Sara Keller) ........................................ 159 6.1. An Imposing Fort on a Hill ..................................................................................................................... 160 6.2. Furza, the Entry Point of the City .......................................................................................................... 162 6.3. A Muzaffarid Fort .................................................................................................................................... 164 6.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 165 7. Warfare in the Indian Ocean. The Walled Cities of the Swahili (Stéphane Pradines) ............... 173 7.1. The First Swahili Fortifications: Caravanserai and Fortified Entrepôts ................................................ 173 7. 2. Swahili City Walls, the Corpus from the 13th to the 19th Century ..................................................... 177 7.3. Definition of Swahili Fortification .......................................................................................................... 186 7.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 190 8. The Defences of the Ottoman Port of Algiers (1530–1830) (Safia Benselama-Messikh) ............ 201 8.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 201 8.2. The Port’s Defences .................................................................................................................................. 203 8.3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 207 contents VII 9. Trans-Imperial Encounter on the Ionian Sea. A French Engineer’s Account of Constructing Ottoman Fortifications (Emily Neumeier) ................................................................. 217 9.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 217 9.2. Preveza before Ali Pasha .......................................................................................................................... 219 9.3. Guillaume de Vaudoncourt’s Engineering Reports at the Gennadius Library ..................................... 221 9.4. Building the Agios Georgios Fort in Preveza ......................................................................................... 223 9.5. Analysis and Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 225 Abstracts .......................................................................................................................................................... 237 List of Authors ................................................................................................................................................. 241.