Download PDF | Michael Greenhalgh - Constantinople to Cordoba_ Dismantling Ancient Architecture in the East, North Africa and Islamic Spain-Brill Academic Pub (2012).
573 Pages
Preface
Acknowledgments I am grateful to the following scholars for their help and advice: Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger; Fabio Barry; Robert Coates; James A. Harrell; Richard Hodges; Anthony Kaldellis; Troels Myrup Kristensen; Andrew Lane; Paolo Liverani; Beth Munro; Arietta Papaconstantinou; and David B. Whitehouse. The research was done in the following institutions, which I thank both for their contents and for the help of their staff: Australian National University, Canberra; Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; Universitätsbibliothek der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Service Historique de la Défense (Terre), Vincennes; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; Victoria & Albert Museum Library, London; Warburg Institute, London.
Theme and Dates
The theme of this book follows logically from those of three previous ones, namely The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages (London 1989, 288 pp), Islam and Marble from the Origins to Saddam Hussein (Canberra 2005, 109 pp. plus 45 illustrations plus CD-ROM of 400 images), and Marble Past, Monumental Present: Building with Antiquities in the Mediaeval Mediterranean (Leiden 2009, xviii pp. + 634 pp. + 36 illus plus DVD of 4000+ images). The first book was restricted to examples from Western Europe; the second gave an overview of the key importance of Islam in the re-use of marble from classical cities; and the third attempted to treat the whole of the Mediterranean, since it is illogical to treat separate “countries” when ship-borne war and commerce imported and exported re-usable marble from one side of the sea to the other. This new research project takes the story further, charting the history of the dismantling, destruction and recycling of the architecture and antiquities of the Greek, Roman and Islamic world from the Middle Ages to the beginnings of mass tourism during the later 19th century, but does not dwell on the complexion of the new manners of architecture formed during the Middle Ages. That the telling of such a story is possible is due to extensive travel literature, from its beginning in the late Middle Ages1 (following some earlier pilgrimage accounts), growing exponentially in the 18th and 19th centuries.
This is largely in Western languages but sometimes in Arabic (and read in translation), and often charts the fate of the monuments as the East and North Africa pursue urbanisation centuries later than had happened in Europe (and for which there are few written accounts, let alone illustrations). Given the small quantity of survivals in original form or even in pieces, we can be certain that destruction was much more common than relatively harmless dismantling for local re-use, which of course makes best use of resources perceived as scarce. “Looting” should perhaps be the term for materials taken far from their context – for example, into European museums. “Destruction” should perhaps be reserved to indicate cases where antique blocks were recut so that their original use or form could not be determined – the most extreme being their conversion into lime for new building. The project has no firm dates at either end, because different areas were popular and hence visited at different times. Again, there are few accounts for the earlier centuries, and we must perforce pay particular attention to mediaeval authors, including those writing in Arabic and available in translation: they must be studied no matter how thin, whimsical or patchy. Matters improve by the Renaissance period, when travellers often compare the wonders they find abroad with the monuments they remember at home, and not always to the credit of home. From the 16th century onwards, ambassadors offer some cogent accounts, sometimes themselves, or sometimes at the hand of learned clerks in their suite.2 From the 17th century, collecting makes a firm appearance (although there are earlier examples), with the first “official” collecting on behalf of Louis XIV.
A Sanitized Past
This book lays heavy emphasis on travellers’ accounts because of the changes wrought in antiquities and sites over the past several centuries, few of them to the benefit of the architecture. Tourists of today should surely be shocked to learn that the Acropolis or Delphi or many other sites (even Cairo)3 did not look a few centuries ago as they do today, let alone the Library of Celsus at Ephesus,4 or indeed Bodrum/Halicarnassus before the later 20th century.i For archaeology, equally driven by external pressures,5 in its brainwashed exclusive eagerness to get down to the Greek or Roman levels (and museum-worthy loot), systematically avoided interesting itself until very recently in post-Roman occupational changes to the classical landscape, including Christian ones, as in the case of the Parthenon.6 This focus even stretched to dismantling the Byzantine fortress at Timgad in order to restore the theatre, and ignoring Christian buildings at Assos.ii And finally mass tourism made its own demands,7 for which the same archaeologists generally cleared away later accretions (i.e. evidence of later occupation of the same sites) so as to present a clear, sanitized and inaccurate story on several sites,8 rather than a more intricate, detailed and accurate one. Worse, their records were often sketchy or missing.9 The process reflects the primacy of esteem of classical civilization (and Greek over Roman where possible) over anything Vandalic, barbaric, mediaeval or Moslem,10 as may be seen from the history of archaeology in Spain,11 where its development is classed as “relatively immature.”12 As a result, what we see today on most archaeological sites is not what travellers saw a century or two ago, let alone a millennium ago. Nor do such sites provide any adequate reflection of what actually happened in the past – let alone any attempt to put today’s tourist money into the countries that really need it.13 Just as archaeology is dependent on political and military access,14 so archaeological surveys are therefore dependent not just upon the burdens of colonialism,15 but also upon the (often restricted) horizons of the excavation reports they excerpt, as in North Africa.16 For the Dead Cities, however, we know more.17 We must, of course, have archaeological reports, if we can temper what we read against the horizons of the archaeologist,18 when we sometimes learn of post-antique building only when the archaeologist has to go around collecting disjecta membra of his temple from later constructions, as at Assos.iii The days of straight reportage are over, and now theories abound, often from very little hard data; but it is heartening to know that for those archaeologists who actually do wield a trowel in anger, a new and better theory is no further away than the nearest trench. But this book cannot deal solely with static antique sites, for we should not expect antiquities to remain at their original location. Looting was a continuing problem, both inland (where settlers found antiquities much less work to re-use than to quarry stone afresh) and by the sea (where antiquities could conveniently be loaded for transport, usually but not always to Europe). Changes in fortification were also significant, since theory and practice developed throughout the 19th century as weaponry changed – and once again it was the ancient ruins which usually suffered the consequences.
Travellers’ Dates
Obviously, dating the sources used is important, since the situation on the
ground often changes through time, and it is generally change which it is
important to follow, so the date given is naturally the date of the publication itself unless this is decades or even centuries earlier, in which case
the date of travel is given, as far as this can be determined. (For the pitfalls
of dating, cf. Texier’s Description de l’Asie Mineure, Paris 1862, which was
published decades after the travel; or any number of editions of ambassadorial travels.) Where the date of publication of a traveller’s account is
within ten years of the travels themselves, then that date is the one usually cited. In many cases, however, accounts of travels are published many
years later, often via an editor, and in this case each citation includes the
catch (travelling “date”). In other cases, it can be uncertain whether an
author actually visited all the places he describes, often fulsomely; in such
cases, as for example with Leo Africanus, whose MS date is known,19 this
is given. Where an MS has no clear date, and when we know only when an author died, not when he wrote the cited work, then the reference might
be “ABC (d.
Quoting the Travellers: Endnotes and Footnotes
This book offers a narrative of dispositions and changes across our Crescent, supported where possible by direct and often extensive quotations from the sources used, which are given in the language in which I find them (which might well not be the language in which they were written). Such quotations are often lengthy, and might be called “documentation notes.” These source references appear as endnotes and, in the printed book, simply as author-date-page. They are in most cases eyewitness accounts of what happened to antiquities, and hence the underpinnings of the argument – “Plus valet oculatus testis unus, quam auriti decem,” as the old saw has it. Too space-hungry to appear in the printed book, and totalling over 500,000 words, these are available for downloading from a website. In the world of the future, where paper-books will be the exception and web-books the norm, the format of this book (a normal-length text backed up with often extensive endnote citations from source materials) will be ideal for web display, because in such a configuration the text would be displayed all the time, and the user could bring up any notes of interest simply by clicking on the hot-link provided for each extended reference. These source references are generally the writings of travellers, which are of very variable quality. They are not often of the standard or variety that – say – an historian of the First World War has the luxury of examining, from manuscript and published memoirs, cabinet records, unit and army records, newspapers, as well as maps, photographs and film. But in the absence of archival or other material, their use is essential to the theme, as a glance at the scholarly literature will confirm.20 Sometimes, complete travellers’ itineraries can be deduced, and then compared one to another.21 The more distant past is, indeed, another country; and over the years I have occasionally been misled by modern authors who (over-) interpret what earlier authors have written, citing source materials in notes which do not support their interpretation. I believe that a better way of proceeding (which should avoid at least some mis-interpretation and wishful thinking) is to keep interpretation in the text to a reasonable minimum, and quote from the earlier authors as fully as necessary. This method is of course an old one: see such works as Brünnow & Domaszewski’s Die Provincia Arabia (Strasburg 1905), wherein travellers’ account for the various monuments are also quoted at length. Naturally, the great majority of my endnotes refer specifically to the Crescent under discussion but, in those instances when little is available, reference has sometimes been made to the much greater volume (and often depth) of scholarly work for Roman areas of Europe, where long and still developing lists of re-used items have been formed.22 The result is that the trusting reader can omit the endnotes, and find all scholarly comments and references in the footnotes. One of the features of this study is the Europe-wide interest in our Crescent, especially strong in France and Britain, but with important contributions from Italy, Holland,23 and Germany – albeit much less in quantity.24 One sign of this interest is the frequency with which accounts were translated, so that it is possible to read Dutch accounts in French, French accounts in English, and English accounts in German or French. A parallel feature of many accounts is that they were cumulative, in the sense that travellers often ventured forth on horse- or camelback, or on foot, with earlier accounts as their guidebooks. Their omnibus productions, often heavily footnoted, were eventually to give way to summarising guidebooks, such as Baedekers, or those produced by John Murray. Because of such constructive piracy, therefore, in many books the DNA (Descriptive Notes on Antiquities) has multiple parentage, often not acknowledged. In the endnotes, contractions have sometimes been expanded, but very little spelling has been changed (u to v, ff to ss, etc) whatever the language, and the early erratic French use of accents has been maintained.iv Sometimes more than one edition of a book is cited in bibliography and endnotes, occasionally in a different language, since later editions often expand on first-edition material to justify their offering for sale. And it has to be said that travel literature was so popular that its printed manifestations, editions, re-editions and translations can be very confusing. Naturally, the book also has footnotes, which are restricted to modern scholarly materials. These are signalled page by page with 1,2,3 etc. Full details of all texts appear in the bibliography, works by travellers under “source materials,” and modern scholarly contributions under “secondary materials.” The bibliography has been divided by location and where possible by subject, in an attempt to make it easier to consult.
A Source-Book for Consulting and Cherry-Picking
Covering as it does such a broad area, and backing up the points it makes with abundant source-quotations, this book is essentially a catalogue interweaved with a running commentary, detailing the various ways in which antiquities were dismantled, destroyed or re-used. However, it cannot be a catalogue in the traditional sense, for three reasons. Survivals are simply too many and too diverse; losses are often by their nature unknowable. Finally, dismantling and re-use were subject to similar pressures, problems and solutions all over our Crescent, for what they did with capitals in Syria was no different from their fate in Asia Minor – so it would in fact be redundant and repetitive to attempt a traditional catalogue. The following account, because of the multitude of comparisons it must make across the mediaeval and later Mediterranean, addresses the density of information and documentation in the following ways: – the Table of Contents is an outline guide to where the book is going, and its many headings and sub-headings then appear in the text; – the book contains many examples, all referenced. While some are tied in with the development of the various arguments and discussions, and therefore appear in the main text, others elaborate on the same theme from other parts of our Crescent, and form a kind of partial catalogue. These, together with some excursions or commentaries on adjacent topics, are set in a slightly smaller point-size, in a text box – as shown here.
Readers can skip these sections unless they are looking for additional material on specific points; – the footnotes on each page, incorporating the works of modern scholars, often serve as counterpoints to my own arguments in the text; – in the printed book, the rich endnotes for each chapter contain references only (in the format author_date_page) to source materials which appear in the Bibliography, backing up assertions made in the text; – in the e-book version of this work, available on-line at Brill, the whole of the text is word-searchable; – illustrations for the printed book have been chosen to demonstrate dismantling and re-use in various areas; – the Bibliography is divided as neatly as possible by country or region (although several of the categories are necessarily fluid and overlapping); it frequently contains comments on the items, dealing with important points of dating or biography. Multiple references (usually to collections of papers) are abbreviated and cross-referenced to the full citation, except when the abbreviations appear on the same page as the full citation. – there are three indexes: (1) subjects for the topics and the dismantled antiquities; (2) sites for the source and destination of many of the antiquities discussed; and (3) people for those who provided the information on which the book is based, as well as for historical personalities. It is impossible for every example cited in the text to be indexed, but a broad cross-section appears in the subject index, others in the sites index. Travellers’ names are indexed only when these appear in the text, and not when the endnotes simply cite their publications, for these are too profuse to index, as the length of the Bibliography makes clear.
Orientalism: Enough Said
Aficionados who take Edward Said’s “Orientalism” as their bible will find no echoing credo or gospel in what follows. Even a cursory reading of original texts will reveal that travellers were neither as scheming nor as one-minded as Said, in his lamentable, ignorant and parti-pris attempts to lay today’s preoccupations of a supposedly Machiavellian West on the past, chooses to believe.25 Nor am I alone for either gentle26 or acute27 criticisms, all of which are valid. His robotic fan club should read both more widely and more deeply, and start with the actual historical materials rather than with the jargon-obscured one-size-fits-all theories: theories may well be useful, but they should follow the evidence, and not precede it – they should get out more, and read a few more languages. Indeed those scholars who use such a woefully inaccurate and misinterpreted schema – straightjacket, really – for their judgments of past interfaces with the Orient should be ashamed of themselves. Is the present state of their discipline – to use another trendy term – blowback?28 As we shall see, travellers journeyed for a wide variety of reasons,29 and imperialist/colonialist plotters were in a miniscule minority. So to approach our travellers while wearing Said’s straightjacket would be a nonsense.30 For while many travellers were awash with prejudices (abroad, after all, does not look or work like Europe) there are infinitely more attempts to understand and explain foreign societies and their customs31 than to dominate them. Nor is it universally the case that such travellers considered the West superior to the East in every particular. And if they often returned with better knowledge of things Greek and Roman than of things Moslem, this was partly due to their education and training, and partly to the common Moslem practice of restricting or forbidding access to religious institutions to infidels (and even punishing them for lookingv). Indeed, there was frequent and sometimes organised opposition to infidels, especially outside commercial centres where they were well known. Konya is one such important (and religious) centre, and Kinnear was forbidden entrance in 1818.vi Lucas had been refused entry to the “Mosque of a Thousand Columns” at Alexandria in the early 18th century,vii and Jomard in 1818 can offer such excellent description of the same complexviii as well as the ex-Church of S. Athanasius because the French occupied the city – and almost destroyed the former.ix “On peut dire qu’ils sont aussi jaloux de leurs Mosquées que de leurs femmes,” writes Le Mascrier in the 1690s.x Mosques in Tunis were still inaccessible in 1880.xi Lucas, on the other hand, prides himself in 1724 on his admission to a mosque in the Citadel in Cairo;xii and Richardson got into the Dome of the Rock in 1822 because he had cured a local dignitary.xiii Finlay got into Haghia Sophia in 1850 only because he had a a firman.xiv
The result is that Islamic architecture, like Islamic civilisation,32 does not begin to get anything like fair exposure to the Western eye until toward the end of the 19th century, when it was common to see anything good in it as Byzantine-derived,xv and even sympathetic travellers such as Guérin can describe it as fantastical and irregular (and not classical).xvi At the same time, amongst some travellers there was often a prejudice against what was sometimes seen as the incoherence of Byzantine architecture,xvii the clumsiness of Egyptian architecture,xviii and against Roman architecture for offending against the holy Greek canons; and not everyone was thrilled by overbearing size.xix
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