The Material Culture of Pre‐ and Early Islamic Arabia

The settlement of the Arabian Peninsula goes back to the dawn of history. Its geographical location connected the peninsula to India and Asia from the second century bce with the discovery of the monsoon winds.

 Africa was close by; to the north lay the Mediterranean world and Mesopotamia.
From the earliest times, the Arabian Peninsula played a decisive intermediary role in the transfer of goods.
The domestication of the one‐humped camel in the eleventh century bce enabled travelers to cross almost waterless terrain.
Incense and myrrh were the most expensive and sought‐after products that the ancient world needed for its temples. The requisite bushes and trees grew in Hadramaut, Dhofar, Soqotra, and Somalia.
Spices including cinnamon, aloes, and cassia were also trade items.

In antiquity the Arabian Peninsula was part of the cultures of the Near East. This cultural landscape can be divided into three zones.

1. The east coast, with the Arabian Gulf, lay under the influence of Mesopotamian culture, and later Parthian and Sasanian rule.
2. The northwest turned to the Levant and the Mediterranean.
3. Yemen in the southwest developed an independent culture, which also influenced the central regions of the peninsula.

 

Figure 2.1 Al‐ʿUla, statue, probably of a king of the dynasty of Lihyan

The heyday of the Arabian high cultures was the first millennium bce. Taymaʾ in the northwest lay on the main route that led from southern Arabia to Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia.
The city was already tied into long‐distance trade in the second millennium bce, and had rich water resources and agriculture.
Al‐khurayba (Dedan), likewise located on the incense route in the well‐watered Wadi al‐Qura, was the capital city of the Lihyan from the sixth to the first century bce.
The temple in the center of the settlement had a rectangular ground plan of 16 × 13.2 m and a terrace at the north side. The roof rested on four rectangular stone pillars. The oversized statues of the kings of Lihyan were set up inside and outside the temple as votive offerings.

 The city cultures in the northeast also flourished most in the pre‐Christian centuries, although Thaj, which some identify with the rich city of Gerrha, had two periods of occupation and continued into the fourth century ce. This large city, with its stone wall, lay astride the east–west trade routes but was provided with precious art objects and artifacts with a Hellenistic character. ʿAin Jawan, the largest ruin of this period in Saudi Arabia, has scarcely been investigated.

In the southwest of Arabia, in Yemen, high cultures arose in Marib, in the Jauf, and in Hadramaut, which qualify as genuinely creative. The center of the dominant Sabaean kingdom, whose culture
radiated as far as Ethiopia, was Marib, site of a famous dam. Already in the early seventh century bce
the great Mukarrib of Sabaʾ, Karibʾil Watar, succeeded in creating a united kingdom extending from Najran in the north to the Gulf of Aden in the south and as far as Hadramaut to the east.

Thus emerged, both culturally and politically, the first large kingdom in South Arabia. Yet
other kingdoms arose in southwestern Arabia, such as Qataban with Timnaʾ as the capital, Hadramaut with its capital Shabwa, Ausan with the city of Miswar, and the kingdom of the Minaeans with the
city of Maʿin.

In spite of various “dialects” of Old South Arabian, the oasis cities formed a cultural unit, especially since they all used the “Sabaean” script in both hieratic and cursive forms, the latter in wood, from the seventh century bce.

Marib, like Shabwa and Timna, lay on the incense route, which led to Maʿin and Najran in the north.
Sophisticated water management fostered intensive agriculture over the millennia.
The famous dam of Marib (sixth century bce, last repairs fifth and sixth centuries ce) was preceded by constructions in the Wadi Dhana, which like the city can be dated to the second millennium bce.

Oases to both north and south, with a surface area of 14 900 hectares, were cultivated with floodwater.


The art of the Sabaeans in its classical period was characterized by its extreme abstraction, as can be seen in the temple buildings preceded by a portico. The distinctive ibex friezes that decorated the temple are of amazing precision and beauty, as are the pillars with their capitals. An earlier temple in the interior of the city, whose portico had eight supports, was “restored” in the eleventh century
ce as the mosque of Solomon.

Various types of temple, some of which probably influenced later mosque architecture, can be distinguished.

In the Sabaean region most of the temples are courtyard complexes, which in the classical period had an inner courtyard surrounded by porticoes. Enclosed hypostyle temples can be found in the Jauf. Temples with a rectangular plan, whose interior space was divided into two rows with three or four supports, are also found in the Jauf (e.g., at Maʿin) and above all in Hadramaut.

They have a bent entrance in Hadramaut, with steps at the side.

Shabwa, the Royal Palace (third century ce).

In addition to the evidence from temple architecture, it is clear that a new house type was introduced in the Sabaean period, which corresponded to the classical Yemeni tower house.
The new architecture is notable for its stone foundation courses with a superstructure of wood and clay.
Portrait heads of marble and alabaster, which were set into grave stelai, or block‐like figures, sitting or standing, show technical skill and an interest in sculptural forms.

Statues of stone or bronze were produced as votive gifts for the deity.

Shabwa the Royal Palace Cont.

Book Reference:
A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture (Blackwell Companions to Art History Book 12)

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