Qarakhanid wall paintings in the citadel of Samarqand: First report and preliminary observations

Muqarnas

Volumn 22, Issue , 2005, Pages 45-84

  Karev, Yury ^a,b  

^a INSTITUTE OF WORLD HISTORY   (Russian Federation)

^b French Uzbek Archeological Mission   (Uzbekistan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62949210658     PISSN: 07322992     EISSN: 09210326     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/22118993-90000083     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Nizcombining dot belowāmī-i 'Arūzī, Revised Translation of the Chahár maqála ("Four Discourses") of Nizámí-i-'Arúd'í of Samarqand...by E. G. Browne, "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. 11, pt. 2 (Leiden: E. J. Brill and London: Luzac & Co., 1921), 30
2. V. V. Bartol'd, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 3rd ed., (London: Luzac, 1968), 254ff
3. A. U. Pope, ed., A Survey of Persian Art, 6 vols. (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1939), vol. 5, pl. 554, A and B
4. Charles Wilkinson, Nishapur: Some Early Islamic Buildings and Their Decoration (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 39-40
5. Wilkinson, Nishapur, 45
6. D. B. Stronach and T. C. Young, "Three Octagonal Seljuq Tomb Towers from Iran," Iran 4 (1966): 1-20
7. see also A. Daneshvari, Medieval Tomb Towers of Iran: An Iconographical Study (Lexington, KY: Mazda, 1986), 41-64
8. N. M. Bachinskij, Arkhitekturnye pamiatniki Turkmenii (Moscow and Ashgabat, 1939), 17-31
9. Yüksel Sayan, Türkmenistan'daki mimari eserler (XI-XVI. yüzyil) (Ankara: Kültür Bakanliǧi, 1999), 385-86, figs. 166-67
10. G. V. Shishkina expressed this opinion in conversation in 1988 on the site of Varakhsha, where she directed the archeological expedition of the Museum of the Orient (Moscow). See also A. Naymark, "Returning to Varakhsha," The Silk Road Foundation Newsletter 1, 2 (2003): 9-22
11. P. Bernard, F. Grenet, M. Isamiddinov, et al., "Fouilles de la mission franco-soviétique à l'ancienne Samarkand (Afrasiab): Première campagne, 1989," Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres: Comptes rendus des séances de l'année (henceforth CRAI) (1990): 356-80, 368
12. O. N. Inevatkina, "Chantier (4A)," in P. Bernard, F. Grenet, M. Isamiddinov, et al., "Fouilles de la mission franco-ouzbèque à l'ancienne Samarkand (Afrasiab): Deuxième et troisième campagnes (1990-1991)," CRAI (1992): 281-82
13. Y. Karev, "Le palais du VIIIe siècle à Samarkand," Studia Iranica 29, 2 (2000): 273-96
14. idem, "La politique d'Abū Muslim dans le Māwarā 'annahr: Les nouvelles données textuelles et archéologiques," Der Islam 79 (2002): 1-46
15. The Max van Berchem Foundation was established in 1973 in honor of Max van Berchem (1863-1921), the founding scholar of Arabic epigraphy as its own discipline. The goal of the foundation is to promote the study of Islamic and Arabic archeology, history, geography, art history, epigraphy, religion, and literature. See the first short report: Y. Karev, "Nouvelles recherches dans la citadelle de l'ancienne Samarkand: Entre les Abbassides et les Qarakhanides," Bulletin de la Fondation Max van Berchem 15 (Dec. 2001): 1-4
16. O. N. Inevatkina, "Fragment syuzhetnoi zhivopisi kontsa XII-nachala XIII vv. iz tsitadeli Samarkanda," Material'naia kul'tura Vostoka (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi muzei Vostoka, 1999), 83-90. A small fragment with the representation of a female figure evidently belongs to the same period and style as the paintings from the lower terrace of the citadel. The fragment was found in a mass of pisé (rammed earth) of the last citadel wall constructed by the Khwarazmshahs before 1220. In other words, it was removed from a destroyed building of the Qarakhanid period after the reconstruction of the citadel before the Mongol invasion. It is difficult to say what kind of building this fragment came from, whether palace or pavilion, but in any case it is a clear indication that the Qarakhanids intensively occupied the castle and its lower terrace in the second half of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, and that they decorated their buildings with figurative paintings
17. Richard Ettinghausen, Arab Painting (Geneva: Albert Skira S. A., 1962), 65. There are numerous parallels in Islamic art as well as in paintings from eastern Turkestan. Further study is required, particularly of the small fragments found around the one depicting the peri; these may help to complete the missing elements)
18. My thanks to Prof. B. Babadzhanov, with whom I discussed this reading
19. This reading was first discussed with Prof. Thérèse Bittar, to whom I express my thanks
20. I wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Yasser Tabbaa, who, during a discussion on Feb. 20, 2004 at the College Art Association Conference in Seattle, was the first to indicate the possibility of this reading
21. I. Umniakov, "Rabātcombining dot below-i Malik," in A. E. Schmidt and E. K. Betger, eds., V. V. Bartol'du turkestanskie druz'ia, ucheniki i pochitateli (Tashkent, 1927), 179-92
22. B. Kochnev and V. Nastich, "K atribucii mavzoleia Shaykh-Fazil (epigraficheskie i numizmaticheskie dannye)," Epigrafika Vostoka 24 (1988): 68-77
23. A. Yakubovskiji, "Dve nadpisi na severnom mavzolee 1152 g. v Uzgene," Epigrafika Vostoka 1 (1947): 27-32
24. M. Masson, "Fragmenty nadpisi karakhanidskogo mavzoleia s gorodishcha Afrasiab," Epigrafika Vostoka 20 (1971): 77-84
25. B. Kochnev, "Zametki po srednevekovoi numizmatike Srednei Azii, chast' 8," Istoriia material'noi kul'tury Uzbekistana 21 (1987): 167-68
26. All the coins were read and are currently being studied by Dr. A. Atakhodzhaev
27. 12 x 12 m - the size of the pavilion - provides 48 m of wall length; multiplied by at least 4 m of wall height, this gives a maximum of 192 sq. m of wall. Allowing for doorways and other areas that were probably not decorated, we can estimate a rough minimum of 150 sq. m of paintings
28. B. Gray, "An Unknown Fragment of the Jāmī' al-Tawārīkh in the Asiatic Society of Bengal," Ars Orientalis 1 (1954): 65-75, fig. 21, fol. 53r: Feast of Qubilay Khan in 662 (1263-64); the manuscript is not earlier than 1430
29. R. Hillenbrand, Imperial Images in Persian Painting: A Scottish Arts Council Exhibition (Edinburgh: Scottish Arts Council Gallery, 1977), 30-31, no. 48: from a manuscript of Sa'dī, Gulistān, Bukhara, 1567-68, in the British Library (London), Or. 5302, fol. 30a. The sovereign represented seems to be the Mughal Sultan Akbar
30. David Talbot Rice, The Illustrations to the "World History" of Rashīd al-Dīn, ed. Basil Gray (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1976), 46, no. 4
31. Douglas Barrett, Islamic Metalwork in the British Museum (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1949), no. 23 (a well-known brass salver, Syria, second half of the thirteenth century)
32. Stuart Cary Welch, A King's Book of Kings: The Shah-Nameh of Shah Tahmasp (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972), 128, fol. 67v: Zal receives Milirab's homage at Kabul
33. Iraida Borodina, Central Asia: Gems of 9th-19th-century Architecture (Moscow: Planeta, 1987), 45, no. 44: The artist Mani presenting a sketch to King Bahramgur, 1521-22, Alisher Navoi Collection, Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library
34. Rice, "World History" of Rashid al-Din, 44, no. 3
35. Ettinghausen, Arab Paintings, 65
36. L'Islam dans les collections nationales (Paris: Édition des musées nationaux, 1977), cat. no. 263, basin signed by Ibn al-Zayn, Egypt or Syria, end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fourteenth century, Louvre, MAO 331
37. Yūsuf Khāscombining dot belowscombining dot below Hājib, Wisdom of Royal Glory: A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes = Kutadgu bilig, trans. Robert Dankoff (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 124
38. Yūsuf Khāscombining dot belowscombining dot below Hājib, Wisdom of Royal Glory, 119
39. L. A. Mayer was the first to pay attention to this episode: L. A. Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 4
40. Abū 'l Fidā', Abulfedae annales muslemici arabice et latine, ed. J. J. Reiske, 5 vols. (Copenhagen: F. W. Thiele, 1789-94), vol. 4, 378 (Arabic), 379 (Latin)
41. My thanks to Dr. A. Atakhodzhaev, who provided me with this information
42. D. Schlumberger et al., Lashkari Bazar, une résidence royale ghaznévide et ghoride, 2 vols. (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1978, orig. publ. 1963), vol. 1A, 61ff. (text), figs. 120-24 ("planches")
43. F. Grenet and B. I. Marshak, "Le mythe de Nana dans l'art de la Sogdiane," Arts asiatiques 53 (1998): 10-11, fig. 6
44. Changdong Tang, Da Tang bi hua = Magnificent Frescos from the Great Tang Dynasty, comp. Guozhen Li (X'ian: Shanxi Tourism Publishing House, 1999), 116, fig. 109: "The Southern Lokapala, Tang Dynasty (7th-9th century). On the south side of the east wall in the 15th cave. Height 91 cm, width 68 cm."
45. Note also the twelve guardians in the upper left corner of a huge fourteenth-century wall painting from Shanxi province, representing an assembly of the Buddha of Medicine (Bhaishajyaguru). The painting is currently on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum. (Kathleen Howard, ed., The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide, 4th ed. [New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987], 97, fig. 48.)
46. Jaques Giès et al., Les arts de l'Asie centrale: La collection Paul Pelliot du Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet, 2 vols. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996), vol. 2, figs. 78: 1.2 and 79
47. See the recent book by B. I. Marshak, Legends, Tales and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana (New York: Biblioteca Persica Press, 2002)
48. see also Guitty Azarpay, Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art, with Contributions by A. M. Belenitskii, B. I. Marshak, and Mark J. Dresden (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981)
49. The bibliography on Sogdian painting is huge and growing rapidly. The four most important archeological sites, the discovery of which by Soviet archeologists in the mid-twentieth century opened a completely new field of art history, are Varakhsha near Bukhara, Samarqand, Penjikent, and Shahristan (Bundjikath) in the region of Usrushana. The basic publications are V. A. Shishkin, Varakhsha (Moscow, 1963)
50. and L. I. Albaum, Zhivopis' Afrasiaba (Tashkent, 1975)
51. for the other two sites, see the references in B. I. Marshak and N. N. Negmatov, "Sogdiana," in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 3, The Cross-roads of Civilizations, ed. B. A. Litvinsky (Paris: UNESCO, 1996), 233-80
52. See also the bibliography of B. Marshak, whose studies concern all key questions on the subject: Webfestschrift Ērān und Anērān: Studies Presented to Boris Ilich Marshak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, ed. P. Raffetta and G. Scarcia, electronic version: http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/index-eran-ud-aneran.html
53. See also F. Grenet, "The Self-Vision of the Sogdians," in Les Sogdiens en Chine, ed. E. de la Vaissière and E. Trombert (Paris: EFEO, forthcoming)
54. A. M. Belenizki, Mittelasien: Kunst der Sogden (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1980), 124, fig. 64
55. A. M. Belenicki and B. I. Marshak, "Drevneyshee izobrazhenie osadnoi mashiny v Srednei Azii," in V. G. Lukonin, Kul'tura Vostoka: Drevnost' i Srednevekov'e (Leningrad, 1978), 215-21
56. B. I. Marshak, "Le programme iconographique des peintures de la 'Salle des Ambassadeurs' à Afrasiab (Samarqand)," Arts asiatiques 49 (1994): 1-20
57. Abu 'l-Fadcombining dot belowl Bayhaqī, Tārīkh-i Mas'ūdī, ed. Sa'īd Nafīsī, 3 vols. (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Kitābkhāna-i Sanā'ī, 1980), vol. 1, 131
58. E. Atil, Ceramics from the World of Islam (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1973), 112-13, no. 50
59. Zāhcombining dot belowir al-Din Muhcombining dot belowammad Bābur Mīrzā, Bābumāma, transcr., trans., and ed. W. M. Thackston, 3 vols. (Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures 18 ([Cambridge, MA]: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Hanard University, 1993), pt. 1: Fergana and Transoxiana, 94-95
60. This evidence was confirmed by our excavation in 2004, when some scenes with at least three figures were found
61. E. Esin, "Turk-i Māh Chihrah (The Turkish Norm of Beauty in Iran)," Akten des VII. Internationalen Kongresses für iranische Kunst und Archäologie, München 7.-10. September 1976 (Berlin, 1979), 449-60
62. Bartol'd, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 17, 88
63. See Cahiers d'Asie centrale 9 (2001), almost entirely dedicated to Qarakhanid studies
64. Muhammad b. Ja'far Narshakhī, The History of Bukhārā, ed. and trans. R. N. Frye (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954), 29-30
65. Muhcombining dot belowammad b. Ja'far Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, trans. Abū Nascombining dot belowr Ahcombining dot belowmad b. Muhcombining dot belowammad al-Qubāvī, ed. Mudarris Rażavī (Tehran: Tūs, 1351 [1973], 2nd ed. 1363 [1984]), 40-42
66. V. V. Bartol'd, Turkestan v epokhu mongol'skogo nashestviia (St. Peterburg: Nauk, 1898), pt. 1 (texts), 87
67. Bartol'd, Turkestan v epokhu mongol'skogo nashestviia, pt. 1, 132
68. Narshakhi, History of Bukhara, 51
69. Narshakhi, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 71
70. Narshakhī, History of Bukhārā, 51
71. Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 70
72. Gardīzī, Zayn al-Akhbār, ed. 'Abd al-Hcombining dot belowayy Hcombining dot belowabībī (Tehran, 1348 [1969-70]), 187-89
73. Nizcombining dot belowāmī-i 'Arūzī, Revised Translation of the Chahār maqāla, 52
74. Ahcombining dot belowmad b. 'Umar b. 'Alī al-Nizcombining dot belowāmī al-'Arūzī al-Samarqandī, Chahár Maqála ("The Four Discourses"), ed. Mīrzā Muhammad Qazwīnī, "E. J. W. Gibb Memorial" Gibb Memorial" Series, vol. 11, pt. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill and London: Luzac, 1910), 46-47
75. Nizcombining dot belowāmī-i 'Arūzī, Revised Translation of the Chahār maqāla, 53
76. Muhcombining dot belowammad b. 'Alī Sūzanī [d. 1173-74], Dīvān, ed. Nāscombining dot belowir al-Dīn Shāh Hcombining dot belowusaynī (Tehran: Amīr-i Kabīr, 1338 [1959])
77. Bartol'd, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 17-18
78. Robert Dankoff, "Qarākhānid Literature and the Beginnings of Turco-Islamic Culture," in Central Asian Monuments, ed. Hasan B. Paksoy (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992), 73-80
79. The numismatic information on the dates of the reign of the Qarakhanid rulers follows B. D. Kochnev, Numismaticheskaia istoriia karakhanidskogo kaganata (991-1209) (Moscow, forthcoming)
80. for Ibn al-Athir, see C. J. Tornberg, ed., Ibn el-Athiri Chronicon, quod perfectissimum inscribitur, 15 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1851-76), vol. 7, 178
81. 'Alā' al-Dīn 'Atcombining dot belowā Malik Juvaynī, The History of the World-Conqueror, trans. J. A. Boyle, 2 vols. (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1958), vol. 2, 392-96
82. Muhammad 'Awfi, Matn-i kāmil-i Lubāb al-albāb, ed. Sa'id Nafisi (Tehran, 1333 [1954-55]), 43, 45-46
83. 'Alā' ad-Dīn 'Atcombining dot belowā Malik al-Juvaynī, Tārīkh-i Jahān-gūshā'i, ed. Mirzā Muhammad Qazwīnī, 3 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill and London: Luzac, 1912), vol. 1, 91
84. Juvaynī, History of the World-Conqueror, vol. 1, 117
85. Juvaynī, Tārīkh-i Jahān-gūshā'i, vol. 2, 162
86. idem, History of the World-Conqueror, vol. 2, 396
87. There is some confusion in the accounts of Juvayni in using the term hcombining dot belowiscombining dot belowār, which is frequently translated as "citadel" (see Bartol'd, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 411ff). Nevertheless, the words qal'a and diz, also used by the author, without doubt refer to the castle or citadel, whereas the translation of hcombining dot belowiscombining dot belowār depends on the context and the archeological evidence.