forerunners of umayyad art: sculptural stone from the hadramawt

Forerunners of Umayyad Art: Sculptural Stone from the HadramawtAuthor(s): Edward J. KeallSource: Muqarnas, Vol. 12 (1995), pp. 11-23Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1523220 .

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EDWARDJ. KEALL

FORERUNNERS OF UMAYYAD ART: SCULPTURAL STONE FROM THE HADRAMAWT

In the aftermath of the Gulf Crisis of 1991, circumstances in Yemen thwarted our projected annual Royal Ontario Museum season of excavations in Zabid: the Yemeni

army had reoccupied the formerly abandoned military fort that served as our base of operations. Obviously we had been too successful in our restoration program. Ironically, the work which had saved some of the build- ings from imminent collapse now made them a logical target for requisition. Tempted to take this last straw in a bundle of disasters as an excuse to leave Yemen for good, I was, however, persuaded by Dr. Yusuf CAbdallah, of the General Organization for Antiquities, Manuscripts, and Museums in Sanca', instead to take the opportunity to travel anywhere in the then recently unified territories of Yemen. Struggling to make the Zabid project a viable operation, I had myself become accustomed to dealing with it like a military operation, racing in after the end of fall classes and hustling to get back to Toronto before too many penalties accrued in January. I had never experi- enced Yemen in a relaxed way before, only the region where we worked. In retrospect, fate had handed us a fantastic opportunity that can not easily be repeated. Four of us traveled by road from Sanca' to the Hadra- mawt via Aden.'

However much it was a golden opportunity to explore the wider dimension of Yemen, I was singly unprepared for what we might see. Fortunately, Ronald Lewcock's popular overview of the Hadramawt existed in the library of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies in Sanca' and gave us the historical framework for under- standing where we were going. In particular the text alluded to the possibility of a Sasanian connection at the site of Husn al-cUrr, whose carvings Lewcock spoke of as having a "strong Persian style."' In addition, the library had a copy of the 1932 text by Van der Meulen and von Wissmann in which the original discovery of a carved stone capital from Husn al-cUrr was reported, along with a sketch of the decoration from three of its four sides."3 This illustration had an immediate impact upon some- one thoroughly at home with Iranian hunting scenes. Besides this, Lankester-Harding's publication of some

carved architrave pieces which had been recovered from the site some years later, and which he labeled as Graeco- Roman in style,4 underlined the fact that although there were differences of opinion regarding their source of conceptual origin, the decorations had little to do with the "native" tradition of South Arabian carved stone art.5 These architrave fragments were decorated with an "inhabited" vine scroll." There are other South Arabian carvings which use stylized vine scrolls as the main basis of the design, but, as with the Husn al-cUrr pieces, this is a medium heavily influenced by the same foreign (Helle- nistic) source.7 For me, with my Parthian heritage, and not well versed in things South Arabian, this was their appeal. They were related to the idea of inhabited vine scrolls from Qalceh-i Yazdigird and the development of the classical rinceaux into the Islamic arabesque.8

Yemen would not necessarily have been the obvious place to pursue this line of inquiry. However, in a sense, the existence of these stone carvings in the Hadramawt only serves to underline how little the art of this country has been studied and published, and what an extraordinary vacuum there exists in our knowledge about old South Arabian art - a failing that is especially startling when considering the subject of the development of early Islamic art. This article is intended to redress some of that imbalance.

To track down the source of these stone carvings from Husn al-cUrr became my main objective on this trip to Aden and the Hadramawt. It was fortuitous to have made the trip in 1991, for there has since been a disturbing report that all the objects in the Aden Museum were taken as loot during the recent civil war, and the stone capital may now be lost. This is especially regrettable since the decorative scenes on the capital were difficult to see in the dark interior of the Aden Museum, and there is still a need to study the piece in good light and at greater length. On my second visit to the site of Husn al-cUrr, in March 1994, to try to discover more about why this artwork had been produced at the site, we were advised not to drive via Aden for security reasons. The inadequacy, then, of this report may be excused partly by the fact that



12 EDWARD J. KEALL

we never had the opportunity to take a second look at the stone capital or produce better photographs in the appropriate raking light. The justification for presenting the material here is that my subsequent research has confirmed my first impression that we are dealing with an artistic tradition that is foreign to Yemen. The objects have a lot in common with works of art that reflect the process by which classical Greek and Roman elements evolved into what we may call medieval art. A connection with things Iranian (both Parthian and Sasanian) is not all that far removed. Above all, of course, as implied above, the Husn al-cUrr carvings have a common heritage with the traditions from which the decorative stonework in UmayyadJordan and Syria was later derived.9

The first outsiders to document the site of Husn al- CUrr and to reveal the carved capital were Van der Meu- len and von Wissmann; they gave the capital to a camel driver to deliver to Aden.m' Curiously, although the capital must weigh in excess of a hundred pounds, the camel driver is reported to have said he preferred carrying it himself, rather than risking breaking the back of his camel. Van der Meulen and von Wissmann recovered only a small piece of a vine-scroll ornament." Lankester Harding reports most of the architrave pieces as still in situ at Husn al-cUrr (albeit in a secondary context) in his 1964 report.'2 When last seen, they were housed in the Mukalla Museum.'" The design is in flat relief, and the details show up reasonably well in a photograph, so the individual elements of the decoration can be seen better than in the case of the capital.

Others have written about the carvings since then, but without a consensus in terms of their date and cultural origin. The best bibliography is to be found in Pirenne's 1986 catalogue of the Aden Museum collection,'" although she declined to date the capital. Writing with H6fner, in 1952, von Wissmann attributed the design of the capital to Sasanian influence;'" Doe called it Byzan- tine."1 Based on the small fragment of an architrave found in 1931, von Wissmann (writing with H6fner) drew an analogy with vine-scroll motifs found at Palmyra;'7 in 1968 he suggested a third-century date for all of the Husn al-cUrr artwork, perhaps influenced by his Palmyrene analogy.'8 For the architrave pieces, Lank- ester Harding described the architrave designs as Graeco-Roman, proposing a 100 B.C.-A.D. date;'9 Doe discussed a range of possible dates between the first century B.C. and the third century A.D., making references to Coptic art, but favoring Syrian influence;2" and Mathew reiterated the classical connection, speaking of the site as representing the "furthest trace of Graeco-

Roman influences emanating from Kane" (Qana, a Gulf of Aden entry port, where an Ethiopian, i.e., Christian, presence has been documented through

excavations).- The fort of Husn al-cUrr has clearly been the subject of at least one major remodeling in its life, as everyone has observed, with many more minor modifications made. Clearly, then, the possibility does exist for different dates to be attributed to the two different styles of stone carvings. Since there are still in situ at Husn al-cUrr, but in a secondary position, two carved inscriptions which have been dated on palaeographic grounds to "around and after 100 A.D.,"" the possibility exists for the site to have had a monumental structure upon it from the first to the sixth century A.D., and obviously even on into the Islamic era. Its use in medieval Islamic times remains to be attested, but it is known that the fort was reused in the 1950's. In 1954, Serjeant reported having coffee there with the Hadrami Bedouin Legion,'" though the fact that the soldiers were unable to use the old well seems to

imply that their construction activities were relatively modest. In 1964 Harding wrote of the fort's having been abandoned by the military just a few years previously.'"4

The dramatic setting of the fort is an isolated hum- mock in the middle of the valley floor, now a desert, where the main east-west (Wadi Masilah) flood course of the Hadramawt is met by a tributary wadi coming in from the southwest. The main wadi is down-cut well below pre- sent ground level; its water is brackish; the floor of the valley is covered with high dunes formed around the roots of scrub vegetation. The desert landscape of the valley floor tempts one to see the ruined fort as a lone outpost. There is a trickle of water moving in the stream bed even during the dry season, however, and, while sit- ting on a sand dune, one incongruously hears the croak- ing of frogs in the stream's reed swamps. It is clear that the land might have been put to good use in antiquity if the water resources were harnessed, and in fact close inspection of the sides of the down-cut wadi reveal that many seasons of artificially induced irrigation are reflected in the fine laminations visible in the sediment. These layered deposits are quite typical of seasonal spate irrigation in Yemen.2"

One may surmise, in fact, that it was these rising sedi- ments which caused the demise of the region. Spate irrigation, bringing with it annual deposits of sediment, causes the field levels to rise.'" Field banks to contain the flood water have to be maintained at constantly rising heights. In such circumstances, eventually it may become impossible for water to have enough gravity to flow out onto these raised levels. Or, inevitably, if there is suf-



FORERUNNERS OF UMAYYAD ART 13

ficient volume for a gravity flow, the flood water artificially maintained at an unnatural height has a tendency to break through the canal banks. The violent action of the flood water racing out of control across the soft sedi- ments causes a deep gash to be cut down through the land. If the whole irrigation infrastructure cannot be set in place again in time for the next seasonal spate, the loss of the fields tends to be a process that is impossible to reverse. Without resources other than this artificially sus- tained agriculture, there is no harvest, but the invest- ment required to effect repairs is enormous. To deter- mine when the last successful management of these irrigated lands at Husn al-cUrr was and when the collapse and subsequent desertification of the whole region occurred is to be, we hope, the target of a future Royal Ontario Museum investigation. Apart from the recent military use, surface evidence suggests that the region became a desert many centuries ago. But whether the site was occupied as late as thirteenth-century Rasulid times, when there were expeditions to this part of the country," remains for future research to unearth.

In the meantime, one can see that, although the fort is dwarfed by the towering escarpment on either side of the valley, its own defensive nature is impressive. Jagged rocks on the outcrop have been accommodated for building the structure above by the addition of leveling courses. After an initial slight setback for each course, the battered face gives way to a sheer vertical rise that presents a formidable challenge to a would-be side intruder. Only two windows penetrating the exterior on the south side break up the defensiveness. Yet to overem- phasize the defensiveness is misleading. Observations about the traces of irrigated farmland point out the obvious: we are not looking at an isolated military post in the desert, in spite of the impression given by this ruin today. Brian Doe spoke of it as the seat of a strongman,2" and chances are that it was indeed a fortified homestead, a "manor house," for a local chieftain, impressive in its imposing nature and able to withstand a light-armed raid, but rather vulnerable to a major attack unless the rest of the region was on the side of the fort's residents.

One can use the term fort or castle for this structure, as the Hadramawti Arabic term h.usn implies, but unfortunately, the English word leaves us with too military a connotation. Perhaps the French chdteau is more appropriate. The Umayyad sense of qasr may be even more appropriate, especially if the parallel is made to a fortified residence in formerly farmed countryside, now turned desert. No doubt the Middle East had thousands of these kinds of establishments from the very beginning of

Islam. A good example outside of the context of the more famous Umayyad Syria would be the case of Umay- yad "palaces" in Iran, near Tehran.'"9 One can certainly reject outright the most extraordinary, but blatantly erroneous, attribution suggested for Husn al-cUrr by Ser- jeant who suggested that the structure was possibly the one alluded to in the Qur an as qasr mashid "the lofty castle [of the infidel] " which was toppled by Islam.3?

Two Old South Arabian inscriptions, in their secondary position, imply that this manor house, whatever we call it, started out originally as a temple dedicated to the goddess CAttar, i.e., Ishtar (around the first century A.D.).31 After that, there were at least two major changes involving the construction of walls that must have been imposing in the blank exterior they presented. The first major remodeling of the site, during which time all of the artwork under discussion was sponsored, occurred around 475-525 A.D. (based on the date of the artwork, in spite of the initially perceived wide disparity in dates). It will also be argued that the resident who was the sponsor of the art program is likely to have been an Arab chieftain, possibly connected with the tribe of Kindah. The political circumstances under which the fortified manor house was sponsored, it is argued, involved mem- bers of the Kindah group who had returned from northern and central Arabia and assumed control of the Hadramawt. The explanation for the foreign element in the art program is to be found in the earlier experiences of the Kindah in Syria. It is from there, then, that the elements in common with Umayyad stone carvings were probably derived. The second major remodeling of the site could easily have occurred in some as yet unspecified medieval Islamic time, though the record of the sedi- ments would tend to favor an uninterrupted sequence of irrigation, with no break until the site was abandoned completely, whenever that was.

Various commentators have observed and recorded different details on the stone capital."2 The capital is admittedly in a poor state of preservation, if it is not now altogether lost. The only ROM record of it made in 1991 leaves much to be desired (see fig. 5 for an example). It is frustrating to think that it will never be possible to scru- tinize its details again, in order to understand better what the artists intended to portray. When using a photograph, broken lines in the stone may mistakenly be taken for part of the design. It is natural, therefore, that explanations for some of the design elements vary widely. Two renderings are presented here - the hand- drawn versions as published in Pirenne's Aden catalogue and a ROM artist's impression, based on rather poor



14 EDWARD J. KEALL

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photographs and notes I took in 1991 (figs. 1-4). In these ROM drawings, all the surface lines were recorded in the expectation that a second inspection would allow us to distinguish the natural cracks and fissures from the pur- poseful parts of the low-relief design.

The overall shape of the four-sided capital is trapezoidal (top and bottom lines parallel and sides splayed at varying angles). There is not a perfect Byzantine parallel for the shape of the capital, though the Byzantine form has obviously influenced some commentators. The general profile is characteristic of what is usually described in Western architecture as an impost capital. Doe called it a "cubiform type of Byzantine cushion capital.""33 One can produce Persian parallels that are equally good. For a profile of a single-faced impost capital in the Parthian tradition, see the examples from Qalceh-i Yazdigird."4 There are no indications to suggest that the trapezoidal capital originally had a round base, which makes it different from most of those illustrated by Kautzsch, even those described as "barbarisierte.""' It is not without significance that the shape could also be similar to one of the early eighth-century capitals from Muwaqqar in Pales-

tine."6 In the Husn al-cUrr four-faced capital, one pair of

opposing sides is slightly narrower and more rectangu- larly upright than the other; the other pair has a wider

splay at the top and, as a consequence, a broader more horizontal scene. Even ignoring the difference in profile due to the wear of age, the capital is moderately irregular all around. The largest height dimension is 46cm.; the smallest width dimension, at the bottom, is 28cm. All four faces of the capital carry decorative scenes bordered by a frame that carries a running vine-scroll device. Parts of the scenes are deliberately cropped by this border.

Face a may be referred to as a lion hunt (fig. 1). There is consensus on this interpretation, though divergence in some of the details. Three mounted hunters plunge their lances towards the upraised foreparts of a rampant lion. The bare-headed riders carry round shields. A fallen hunter lies beneath the lion, thrusting upwards with his lance into the lion's underbelly. The foreparts of another horse can be seen above the lion's back. At the bottom of the scene, there is a second image of a lion upturned in death, though Jamme saw an upturned horse instead of a dead lion.37

Face b presents an ibex hunt (fig. 2). Of all the four, this is the scene in which the activity is most dramatically and effectively cropped by the frame. A mounted hunter, entering from stage left, pursues an unidentifiable quarry across the center of the scene; a second human figure, skirted and holding a shield, strides into the picture at the upper right (the details are too broken for




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interpretation); and a third man wrestles a gazelle by the horns at the bottom right. The details are not well enough preserved to allow for perfect identification of the animal species, though the shortness of the one set of horns discernible makes it necessary to think gener- ically in terms of an antelope or gazelle, rather than an ibex, as Jamme saw them."8

Interpretation of face c is a contentious issue (fig. 3). Pirenne, following Jamme,"9 cagily accepted a row of mounded shapes as the head of hunters marching. But these forms are in flat relief compared to the other human figures, and the regular shapes can best be inter- preted as the top of a fence set up as a trap for game dri-

ven by beaters. The presence of dogs in the scene lends itself readily to the support of this interpretation. It is easy to find parallels for this kind of arrangement of game being driven into an enclosure, in ancient Near Eastern art going back to Assyrian times.40 In a more con- temporaneous sense, the reliefs at Taq-i Bustan in Iran provide a parallel in Sasanian times.4' But there are also numerous examples of game driven into a net to be seen in the Byzantine art of North Africa."42 As for the beaters, there are two ways of looking at the kind of dress they wear: the skirt could be a pleated Roman tunic, or, con- ceivably, the classic Yemeni futah or sarong. The beaters hold two kinds of implement - a straight staff (identi-

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16 EDWARD J. KEALL

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fled as a lance byJamme), and a curved device which I prefer to see as an unstrung bow.

Face d is the most enigmatic, and the title used here, "pastoral scene," is deliberately vague (figs. 4-5). The scene is full of animals, clearly identifiable as ibex from the strongly curved horns. One of them is immature. One of the adults is resting, two of them are browsing, while two others engage in a vigorous sporting battle. They appear to pay little attention to the solitary figure with staff and horned headdress who is positioned at the top of the scene, in the middle. Whether this is a guard- ian spirit of game, a hunter in disguise, or a triumphant hunter is open to debate. Perhaps it is of no great consequence here, though one should acknowledge that cere- monies of propitiation for the hunt or rituals connected with its celebration are standard themes in South Ara- bian culture. Beeston comments on how the then pre- sent-day ceremonial dances could be judged as pagan remnants of pre-Islamic cults.i

Certainly, in terms of South Arabian studies, more precise identification of the events depicted in the scenes promises to be a rewarding experience. At this stage, though, without the prospect of further illumination through close inspection, it is more useful to consider the overall compositions of the four different scenes. If one can assume that all four faces must have been pre- pared along the same lines, though with varying mea- surements, one may repeat that the scene is presented

within a trapezoid frame. The phenomenon of parts of the picture actually protruding into this frame is reminiscent, though not exclusively so, of Sasanian rock reliefs where the crown of the king, for instance, is often car- ried deliberately beyond the edge of the picture panel. In the case of the Husn al-cUrr capital, the incomplete forms of the figures are due to their being shown entering the picture from off-stage as it were. Another way of looking at it is to see the picture cropped, as though the scene had been composed within the frame of a camera.

As for the figures portrayed, all of them are equally proportioned and are seen from one viewpoint; all of them are placed in a way that gives a sense of space. Each part of the scene can be read as a separate action, different in space, and perhaps even in time as well. One can debate endlessly, therefore, whether the illustrations are intended to be seen as a continuous narrative in a linear sense ("episodic"), or whether they represent a summa- tion of the incidents in an event ("culmination").44 To some extent, the interpretation of the artist's intent de- pends upon whether one sees an "eastern" or "western" tradition reflected in the composition.

Certainly, apart from the initial impression of a vague similarity with the way in which the onlookers are presented in the Sasanian rock relief at Darabjird, Iran,45 grouped up at the top and sides of the picture, there is not very much in the composition that can be called Sasanian. The fact that the hunt is represented, with




Fig. 5. The capital, face d. Pastoral scene. (photo: ROM Project)

game driven into an enclosure, is irrelevant. Themes of the hunt and the mounted hunter had long since been integrated into the vocabulary of Western artists, going back to at least Parthian times. The hunters have well established prototypes which are ultimately of eastern rather than classical origin. But Rice pointed out a long time ago how Parthian and Sasanian themes had already been assimilated into Roman art well before the time of the Constantinople mosaics." This was echoed in 1963 by Lavin who stressed that the appearance of a character- istically Oriental motive or decorative pattern (even if it had no local precedents) is not in itself evidence of a direct importation from outside. Nevertheless he also argued reasonably that where an unprecedented quan- tity of these elements occurs, it is perverse to deny that, at the very least, there has been a recent influx of devices as part of a renewed vogue for Oriental themes.47 Indi- vidual elements that are derived from an older Eastern tradition cannot be used in isolation to identify the source of the artistic inspiration. But in the case of the Husn al-cUrr capital, the scenes are so unique in Yemen that one has no difficulty in acknowledging that a for-

eign influence, rather than a long-standing assimilated tradition, is attested.

It is the overall composition, and not the individual elements, that allows us to make significant stylistic judg- ments. In the relationship of the hunter to his quarry, there is a balance of scale that does not.exist in Sasanian art. Sasanian hunters tend to be centrally positioned in the scene, and sometimes exaggerated in size. The Husn al-cUrr lions are enormous by Sasanian standards. Fur- ther east than Iran, that is, in Central Asia, one can find a greater balance of scale between hunter and quarry, though these works are often very difficult to date securely so they can weaken an argument. But what makes the Central Asian examples of the hunt also inappropriate for comparative purposes is that, like the rig- idly tiered compositions of Sasanian hunt scenes (such as at Taq-i Bustan), they show the hunters depicted in rows, without the sense of space that is given in our capital. The fact that a close parallel to the informal composition of the Husn al-cUrr scenes in Persian terms is to be found, for example, in Central Asia (Samarqand)," only serves to underline the non-Sasanian characteristics. But, here, this arrangement is already too late in date, i.e., seventh-eighth centuries, to give us a source of origin.

Clearly, the search for the origins of the Husn al-cUrr capital is difficult. The composition of figures separately grouped, set in a space but without details of landscape, is characteristic of Byzantine floor mosaics, especially in late-fifth- and early-sixth-century Constantinople and Antioch. Interestingly enough, the conceptual layout of these Byzantine-period floor mosaics may actually have been influenced by an Eastern notion of "culmination" narrative, so that the artistic device has traveled a complete circle. The composition of the hunting scenes in the Constantinople mosaics are far different from late Roman art where narratives are shown in a natural landscape. In commenting on the floor mosaics from the so- called Great Palace of the Byzantine emperors in Con- stantinople, Talbot Rice spoke of the lack of a true "Byz- antine" flavor that excluded the possibility of attributing them to as late as the time of Justinian.49 For him, the essential distinguishing factor for identifying the source of inspiration for these Constantinople mosaics was the way in which the hunters and animals were set in a space, where details of the landscape had been almost completely eliminated. By the same token, it was argued, the hunting scenes depicted in the Constantinople mosaics were also quite distinct from the narrative compositions of typical third-century North African mosaics, even



18 EDWARDJ. KEALL

though many of the individual elements used may have been similar. In third-century Roman mosaics, action is presented in a continuous line over a period of time as well as in space; in fifth-century Constantinople (450- 500) scenes are not connected, and the ground is not represented. For Rice, the greater similarity is to be found with the mosaics of Syria, rather than North Africa.50

It is highly significant, then, that in one of the Con- stantinople mosaics, two vignettes can be judged very close in style and composition to the hunting activities presented on the Husn al-CUrr capital. In one scene, a solitary tree gives a cryptic reference to a landscape setting in which a rider falls from a mule as it lashes out at him with its hind legs.5' This humorous depiction is more than a little reminiscent of the undignified way in which the artist of the Husn al-cUrr capital has placed the fallen horseman beneath the lion on face a. In another scene from Constantinople, a mounted hunter pursues two deer from behind with a lance.52 This pur- suit with a lance, rather than with a bow, is equally reminiscent of the Husn al-cUrr capital, face b.

A further similarity between the two works is the importance given to the border in both. While the Husn al-cUrr border is stronger, acting, as we said, almost as the frame of a stage setting, with parts of the action cropped as though composed in a photograph, the Con- stantinople figures would also have no relationship to one another, were it not for the border that ties them all together. Lavin spoke of the major transformation that occurred when the late classical principle of space orga-

nization gave way to a style represented at Antioch in the late fifth century in the mosaic known as the "Worcester hunt."5" Here, figures are arranged seemingly at ran- dom, yet in a carefully arranged way so that one scene leads to the next. This is also true of the Dumbarton Oaks hunt.54 Of course, the one major compositional difference is that the viewpoint for the Antioch floor mosaics is from all around, as the viewer moves across the floor, whereas the scenes on the Husn al-CUrr capital are presented as though viewed through a single camera frame. The single bird's eye view perspective is closer to the way in which the viewer sees the small hunt in the floor mosaic of the Piazza Amerina.55 Yet here we do not see the device of the frame cropping the action, only bordering it. But notwithstanding these admittedly significant conceptual differences, the Syrian formula remains a far better comparison for our capital than the rigid tiers of Persian art.

For the architrave pieces from Husn al-cUrr (figs. 6-9), at first glance the composition and style are quite different from those of the capital. The format of the design is of a vertical panel on which the decoration is 20 cm. wide; the fragments in the museum are over half a meter high. The design itself is based on the use of an inhabited vine scroll, comprised of two stems emanating from an acanthus-leaf base. The loops of the scroll are symmetrical, and they carry leaves, tendrils, and bunches of grapes. Some of the figures which inhabit the scroll are diminutive by comparison with the vine, in spite of the fact that the figures interact with the vine and are not just set within it. For instance, on the front (figs. 6-7), a

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dove pecks at a bunch of grapes the size of itself, a natural possibility. But on the same panel a hunter stalks a deer amidst the vine, and these figures are completely out of scale with the dove. The viewer is expected to ac- cept the entire effect in rather the same way that English fairy stories allow one to imagine Jack climbing up the beanstalk. Though deliberately out of scale, the figures are depicted in a physical relationship to the vine, with the hunter portrayed in front of a vine stem, and the deer presented behind it, which helps impart a sense of perspective. On the side face (figs. 8-9), a hunter aims his arrow at a deer. On the panels in the Mukalla Museum not illustrated here, a woman and child appear standing amidst the vine, and a figure is shown parallel to a stem, as though climbing it.

Certainly one can produce examples of inhabited vine-scroll depictions in Persian art. My own interest in Husn al-cUrr stems in large part from an interest, through Qalceh-i Yazdigird, in peopled scrolls and capitals." The most celebrated example of inhabited scrolls in Islamic art is, of course, the Mshatta faCade."7 Smaller- scale examples from the Umayyad period include window frames from Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi." There are also vague parallels to be found in the form of carved wood- work that is usually attributed in museum collections to sixth- and seventh-century Alexandria.5" Yet the closest parallel to a decorated door frame is to be found in the East Church of the Alahan monastery in southern Tur- key, dating from somewhere just before 490.60 This artwork lacks the hunters of the Husn al-cUrr pieces (obviously inappropriate in a church), but overall it remains the best parallel for composition and for the relative scale of the birds and the bunches of grapes to the vine. One major factor which places the artwork of the archi- traves in the Western camp is the fact that the fragments at hand appear to be limited to door and window frames.

This is in complete contrast to the Iranian tradition of all-over wall decorations, as typified by Parthian and Sasanian examples too numerous to mention, where the entire wall surface is covered as though with textiles."6

During my first presentation of this material to a public audience, I described the artwork as being comprised mainly of foreign elements, with both Byzantine and Sasanian flavors, and dated between the fourth century (for the capital) and sixth century (for the architrave fragments). The historical explanation for why this might have occurred was that the Hadramawt had become dominated in the sixth century by the Kindah tribe that had recently settled there. The date of 570 has been singled out as a time when the Kindah were strong in the Hadramawt.62 In the previous century they had been involved in various mercenary activities in the upper Eu- phrates corridor.63 One of its most distinguished charac- ters was al-Harith b. CAmr, whose military career had mainly been spent in Palestine, the Jazira of Syria, and Iraq in the early 500's. Later, he claimed the throne of al-Hira for himself for a brief period around 525-28."4 His experiences had exposed him to the artistic traditions of the Euphrates corridor, where perhaps an amal- gam of Byzantine and Sasanian traditions might easily have been found. Since the art program at Husn al-cUrr included elements introduced from the area where al- Harith had previously spent time, it seemed to be a plau- sible hypothesis that the site was sponsored by him or one of his descendants.

Unfortunately, subsequent research has led me to con- clude that neither al-Harith nor his immediate successors could have been responsible for Husn al-cUrr. The chronology of the father's lifetime is a little hard to es- tablish accurately. Nevertheless, there is a consensus that a treaty was signed in 502 A.D. between the Byzantine agents of the Emperor Anastasius and the Kindah, mak-

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20 EDWARD J. KEALL

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ing al-Harith a phylarch of Palestine, consistent with the policy that had existed since the fourth century of making "Treaty Arabs" responsible for the defense of the eastern frontier."5 Upheavals which occurred in Iran when Kavad (Qobad) toyed with the revolutionary move- ment of Mazdakism allowed al-Harith to oust Mundhir III from the throne." But he lost this position when he clashed with the dux of Palestine around 528, by whose instigation he probably met his death at the hands of the Lakhmids taking revenge for al-Mundhir's ouster."'

Al-Harith cannot, then, be the one responsible for the sponsorship of Husn al-cUrr. The question is whether any of al-Harith's successors could have sponsored the work. On the one hand, Shahid (writing under Kawar) declared that, in spite of the setting of Kindah's star in 528, the tribe remained important, politically and mili- tarily, in central Arabia. On the other hand, the same writer spoke elsewhere of the power of the Kindah disin- tegrating in central and northern Arabia in the second half of the sixth century."8 Rothstein, too, created an

almost poetic mood to describe, though perhaps without any historical fact to substantiate his statement, how "die Kinda verschwinden wieder im fernen Sfiden woher sie gekommen waren.""69 Unfortunately, the evidences we have to build up the historical picture are rather few and far between.70 But there is no escaping the fact that after al-Harith's death, his sons (of the family of the Banu Akil al-Murar) were fighting amongst themselves in battle, some time after 530." In this weakened position, they hardly represented the kind of group that could have mustered the resources to sponsor Husn al-cUrr.

Searching for alternative candidates with South Arabian residency backgrounds but upper Euphrates experience, one can observe that there were Kindah groups, in addition to the Banu Akil al-Murar, who had moved out of central Arabia and become involved in power plays enacted in Iraq and Syria in the course of the sixth century. For example, we learn of the Kindah supporting the Himyarites of southern Arabia in their confrontation with King al-Mund- hir of Hira in the 520's.72 While it may be difficult to iden-

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tify the precise person, some chieftain of the Kindah may still remain a good candidate for having been the sponsor of the Husn al-cUrr estate. Indeed, one may observe that it was the Banu Walicah families of the Banfi CAmr b. MuCa- wiyah clan (not the Banu Akil al-Murar) who were the ones aggressively holding authority in the Hadramawt in the 570's.73 Unfortunately, in their case there is no suggestion that they had spent time in the same way as al-Harith's family, in Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. So one must be cau- tious about using that line of argument.

On the basis of tangible works of art, one can suggest that the Husn al-cUrr artwork can best be explained by see- ing the original artistic inspiration as lying somewhere between Tarsus and Tyre, around 500 A.D.. Given that, one must find ways to get the artist, or the artistic concept, to Yemen. Any of a number of Kindah families might have had appropriate experiences in central and northern Ara- bia (including Palestine and central Syria), where one can imagine that a richer artistic heritage existed than is usually acknowledged. Here, in an Arab world just before Islam, there were ample opportunities for Sasanian and Byzantine themes to have been picked up by artists work- ing for the Arab chieftains. It is just not something for which we have, at the moment, much of an established archaeological record, though hints of it exist.'"4

One should not ignore, too, the presence in South Arabia of Christian architects who may also have contrib- uted to bringing Syrian elements south, whither they later returned after the beginning of Islam. Shahid enthusi- astically promotes the idea that there was a strong connection in the sixth century between Syria and South Arabia because of the Christian factor. Syria, he reminds us, was the prestigious center for the Monophysite church, which was enjoying a revival under the reign of the Ghassanid King Arethas (al-Harith b. Jabala); Qana, on the coast facing the Hadramawt, was an important center of Christianity in South Arabia and the main Christian community of South Arabia migrated north to Syria during the caliphate of CUmar.75 Under these circumstances, it is easy to imagine how South Arabian traditions (originally foreign, but now assimilated) could have helped contribute to the development of Umayyad art, much more than is generally publicly acknowledged. In that sense the Husn al-cUrr carvings represent something much more significant than the fact that a resident of the Hadramawt paid to have his estate house decorated with foreign designs.

Royal Ontario Museum Toronto, Ontario

NOTES

1. The team consisted of myself, the Yemeni representative Mr. Muhammad Amin CAbd al-Jabar al-Asbahi, Mr. Peter Mitchell, and Dr. Noha Sadek. I first presented the results of this trip to Husn al-cUrr, along with preliminary ideas about the artwork, at a conference organized by the British Institute of Persian Studies in March 1992 in London, dealing with "Parthian and Sasanian Themes in Iranian Art." A paper was submitted to the editors of the conference proceedings, entitled "Carved Stonework from the Hadramawt in Yemen - Is It Sasanian?," but it has yet to appear in print.

2. Ronald B. Lewcock, Wadi Hadramawt and the Walled City of Shi-

barn (Paris: UNESCO, 1986), p.28. 3. Daniel Van der Meulen and Hermann von Wissmann, HIadra-

nmawt: Some of Its Mysteries Unveiled (Leiden, 1932, repr. 1964). 4. G. Lankester Harding, Archaeology in the Aden Protectorates (Lon-

don, 1964), p.44. 5. A few good examples of a range of "native," i.e., Sabaean or

Minaean, sculpture, illustrated in color, can most easily be seen in the various essays in Werner Daum, ed., Yemen. 3000 Years of Art and Civilisation in Arabia Felix (Innsbruck: Pinguin, 1987). A more extensive study, with black-and-white plates, is to be found in Adolf Grohmann, Arabien (Munich, 1963), pls. 1-28.

6. For a discussion of the term "inhabited," see C. Dauphin, "The Development of the 'Inhabited Scroll' in Architectural Sculpture and Mosaic Art from Late Imperial Times to the Sev- enth Century A.D.", Levant 19 (1987): 183-212; and J.M.C. Toynbee and J.B. Ward Perkins, "Peopled Scrolls: A Hellenis- tic Motif in Imperial Art," Papers of the British School at Rome 18, 5 (1950): 1-43.

7. As an example, see the illustration in Daum, Yemen, p.94, fig., top left; and R. Audouin, "Sculptures et peintures du chateau royal de Shabwa," Syria 68 (1991): fig. 1. See also P.M. Costa, "Problems of Style and Iconography in the South-Arabian Sculpture," Yemen 1 (1992): 21-23.

8. For a stylized vine scroll inhabited by a human bust, excavated in a late Parthian context in Iran, see E.J. Keall, M.A. Leveque, and N. Willson, "Qalceh-i Yazdigird: Its Architectural Decora- tions," Iran 18 (1980): fig. 7. For a discussion of this artwork in a broader context, which explains my interest in the pieces from the Hadramawt, see E.J. Keall, "Islam's Debt to Parthian Art," Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis: Miscellanea ini Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe, ed. L. de Meyer and E. Haerinck (Ghent: Peeters, 1989): 977-99. The suggestion that Iranian artists were already developing an abstract vegetal form in Parthian times appears on p.979 and in fig. 4. See alsoJ. Pirenne, "Le rinceau dans l'evolution de l'art sud arabe," Syria 34 (1957): 99-127.

9. The details of the argument presented here are based largely on the result of research conducted while enjoying a Stipen- dium at the Deutsches Archiologisches Institut, Berlin, in the spring of 1994, and benefiting from extensive comments made by those attending my public lecture on the subject in the Ori- ental Haus of the DAI. I also benefited from being able to see, on a repeat basis, the Mshatta facade in the Islamic galleryI of the Pergamon Museum, and I am indebted to the late Dr. Michael Meinecke for his own public lecture in which he drew the audience's attention to window grilles from Qasr al-Hayr



22 EDWARD J. KEALL

al-Gharbi, which gave me appropriate parallels in Umayyad art for the architrave pieces under discussion here.

10. When last seen, the capital was registered in the Aden Museum collection as no. AM 395.

11. H. von Wissmann and M. H6fner, Beitriige zur historischen Geog- raphie des vorislamischen Siidarabien (Wiesbaden, 1953), pl. 10, no. 16.

12. Harding, Archaeology in Aden, p.44. 13. The architrave pieces published here are two faces of the same

architrave, Mukalla Museum no. MM 61. These are said by Grohmann to have been discovered by von Wissmann in 1959 (Grohmann, Arabien, p.199). The other fragment, which Harding reported as having been taken by a Mr. R. Daly to a (British) official's house in Seyun, are also now part of the Mukalla collection, registered as no. MM 75.

14. J. Pirenne, comp., Corpus des inscriptions et antiquitis sud-arabes, II. Le musie d'Aden, 2: Antiquitis (Louvain, 1986).

15. Von Wissmann and H6fner, Zur historischen Geographie, p. 139. 16. D. Brian Doe, Southern Arabia (London: Thames & Hudson,

1971), p.242. 17. Von Wissmann and H6fner, Zur historischen Geographie, p. 138. 18. H. von Wissman, ZurArchiiologie und antiken Geographie von Siid-

arabien (Istanbul, 1968), p.47. 19. Harding, Archaeology in Aden, p.44. 20. Doe, Southern Arabia, p.220. 21. G. Mathew, "The Dating and Significance of the Periplus of

the Erythraean Sea," East Africa and the Orient, ed. H.N. Chit- tick and R.I. Rotberg (London, 1975), p.161. On the Christian monuments at Qana, see Irfan Shahid, "Byzantium in South Arabia" in Byzantium and the Semitic Orient before the Rise of Islam [Collected Studies] (London: Variorum, 1988), sect. IX, pp.47-51. For the excavations at Qana, see A.V. Sedov, "New Archaeological and Epigraphical Material from Qana (South Arabia), Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 3 (Copenhagen, 1992): 110-37.

22. Von Wissmann, Zur Archiiologie, p.46-47. For a full transcrip- tion and translation, see G. Ryckmans, "Inscriptions sud- arabes, 19e serie," Le Musion 75 (1962): 213-31; and "20e serie," ibid., 441-53.

23. R.B. Serjeant, "Hid and other Pre-Islamic Prophets of Hadra- mawt," Le Musion 67 (1954): 147.

24. Harding, Archaeology ofAden, p.43. 25. These observations were made in March 1994, when I was

accompanied by Dr. Ingrid Hehmeyer, to whom I am indebted for the interpretation. A preliminary statement was presented to the Arabian Studies Seminar in Oxford, in July 1994, and will be published in the 1995 issue of the seminar proceedings.

26. Concerning the general phenomenon in Yemen of silting through irrigation, see R.B. Serjeant, "Observations on Irriga- tion in South West Arabia," Seminarfor Arabian Studies, Proceed- ings 18 (1988): 145-53. See also I. Hehmeyer and E.J. Keall, "Water and Land Management in the Zabid Hinterland," al- CUsir al-Wustd (Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists) 5,2 (Oct. 1992): 25-27.

27. Lewcock, Hadramawt, p.33, speaks of Husn al-cUrr being abandoned in 1258, without explanation. T.M.Johnstone mentions a punitive mission to the Hadramawt by the Rasulids, in the 1270's, in "Hadramawt," Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Suppl. 5-6 (1982): 337-40, but the implications here are that the ter- ritory was not normally under their control. Rex Smith, "The Rasulids in Dhofar in the VIIth-VIIIth/XIII-XIVth Centuries.

Part 1: The Historical Background," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 20 (1988): 29-30, describes crop failure and famine in the Hadramawt in 1278, which prompted people to sell their fortresses to the ruler of Zafar (in Dhofar) in return for assistance, only to try to renege later, perhaps with Rasulid encouragement. Curiously, the Rasulids took an extraordinary detour around the district of Husn al-CUrr on their way to take Zafar in 1278 (see Smith's map, ibid., p. 44).

28. Doe, Southern Arabia, p.243. 29. The palaces described in D. Thompson, Stucco from Chal Tark-

han -Eshqabad near Rayy (Warminster, 1976), are quite open in plan, and no defensive walls were unearthed. Closer in scale to our building would be the other Chal Tarkhan site described in R. Naumann, "Tepe Mill, ein sasanidischer Palast," Bagh- dader Mitteilungen 3 (1964): 75-77, though again no defensive walls were exposed by the original excavators, only its stucco decorated piers and vaults.

30. Serjeant, "Hid and Other Pre-Islamrnic Prophets," p.147. The Qur'anic verse (sura 22: 45) implies, in asking "how many?," that the kinds of palaces toppled were several, notjust one, as Serjeant's comment rather seems to suggest.

31. Ryckmans, "Inscriptions sud-arabes," p.220; and von Wiss- mann, ZurArchdologie, p.47.

32. Reference is made in the text below to interpretations made by Pirenne, Musie d'Aden, pp.241-50; and by A. Jamme, "Pieces anepigraphiques sud-arabes d'Aden," Le Musion 64 (1951): 157-76.

33. D. Brian Doe, Monuments of South Arabia (Cambridge and New York: Falcon-Oleander, 1983), p.222. Re "IKimpferkapitelle," see Rudolf Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien: Beitrdige zu einer Geschichte des spitantiken Kapitells im Osten vom vierten bis ins siebenteJahr- hundert (Berlin, 1936), pp.182-210 and pl. 43 (no.731, from 6th-century Constantinople, is a trapezoid, but round based). For Iranian shapes similar to those in Kautzsch, see E. von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle (Berlin, 1962), pls.27-28, nos.153-60. These are equally round based, as are the late- Sasanian capitals from Bisitun, which are beautifully illustrated in H. von Gall, "The Figural Capitals at Taq-e Bostan and the Question of the So-called Investiture in Parthian and Sasanian Art," Silk Road Art and Archaeology (Kamakura: Insti- tute of Silk Road Studies, 1990), pls. 1-3.

34. A good example of the single-faced, engaged capital (but with the same profile) is to be found in E. Keal [sic], "The Art of the Parthians," The Arts ofPersia, ed. R.W. Ferrier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), fig. 10. Other eastern versions, generally of the Parthian period or equivalent culture, can be seen in von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle, pls.24-26, nos. 132-148.

35. Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien, pp.234-35. 36. Cf. K.A.C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1969), pl.82d. 37. Jamme, "Pieces anepigraphiques," pp. 168-69. 38. Ibid. 39. Pirenne, Musied'Aden, p.244. 40. For instance, hunted deer are being driven into a cul-de-sac

formed by a net, in a mid-7th-century B.c. Assyrian palace relief of Ashurbanipal, in R.D. Barnett, Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum (Toronto, 1975), pl.126.

41. Deer are being driven through a fence in the right-hand panel of the early-7th-century Sasanian grotto at Taq-i Bustan,




in S. Fukai and K. Horiuchi, Taq-i-Bustan (Tokyo, 1969), pl.82. 42. Cf. Irving Lavin, "The Hunting Mosaics of Antioch and Their

Sources: A Study of Compositional Principles in the Develop- ment of Early Medieval Style," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): figs. 79 and 81.

43. Cf. A.F.L. Beeston, "The Ritual Hunt: A Study of Old South Arabian Religious Practice," Le Musion 61 (1948): 183-96; see also G. Ryckmans, "La chasse rituelle," Le Musion (1976): 298-300.

44. For the use of these terms, see A. Perkins, "Narration in Baby- lonian Art," American Journal of Archaeology 61 (1957): 61. See also H. Gfiterbock, "Narration in Anatolian, Syrian, and Assyr- ian Art," American Journal of Archaeology 61 (1957): 62-71.

45. On the Darabjird relief, see G. Herrmann, "The Darabgird Relief - Ardashir or Shahpfir?," Iran 7 (1969): 63-88. For a more recent discussion on the style of the Sasanian reliefs in general, see D. Levit-Tawil, "Re-dating the Sasanian Reliefs at Tang-e Qandil and Barm-e Dilak: Composition and Style as Dating Criteria," Iranica Antiqua 28 (1993): 141-68.

46. D.T. Rice, ed., The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors. Second Report (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1958), p.146.

47. Lavin, Hunting Mosaics, p.198. 48. Cf. R. Brentjes, "Ein verlorenes 'kupfer-gold'-Gefiiss aus Sib-

irien," Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 19 (1986): 169 and fig. 2.

49. Rice, Byzantine Emperors, p.160 (dating the Constantinople mosaics to 450-550, but cf. n.50 below).

50. Ibid., p.146 (dating the same mosaics, as n.49 above, to 450- 500).

51. Ibid., pp. 121-25, pl.45, and fig. 30, no.12. 52. Ibid., pl.45 and fig. 30, no.6. 53. Lavin, Hunting Mosaics, pl. 2; and Ernst Kitzinger, "Stylistic De-

velopments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East from the Age of Constantine to the Age ofJustinian," in The Art ofBy- zantium and the Medieval West: Selected Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), fig. 4.

54. Doro Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements (Princeton, N.J.: Prince- ton University Press, 1947), pl. 36a.

55. Lavin, Hunting Mosaics, pl.110. 56. See above, n.8. 57. Physical description in "The Date of Mshatta and Qasr at-

Thiba" in Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, pp.623-41. See also L. Trfimpelmann, Mschatta. Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung des Kunstkreises, zur Datierung um zum Stil der Ornamentik (Tiibin- gen: M. Niemeyer, 1962).

58. D. Schlumberger, "Les fouilles de Qasr al-Heir el-Gharbi

(1936-1938). Rapport preliminaire," Syria 20 (1939), fig. 2; and Qasr el-Heir el Gharbi (Paris, 1986), pls. 78a and 84a.

59. See also the Coptic parallels given in "Architectural Origins and Date" in Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, pp.614-22 and figs. 678-84.

60. The site is described in M. Gough, ed., Alahan: An Early Chris- tian Monastery in Southern Turkey (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1985). The door frame in question, however, is only illustrated in Dauphin, Inhabited Scrolls, fig. 1.

61. On the origin of this term, see B. Goldman, "The Allover Pat- tern in Mesopotamian Stuccowork," Berytus 10 (1952-53).

62. CAbd al-Muhsin Madcaj M. al-MadCaj, The Yemen in Early Islam (London, 1988), p.12.

63. I. Shahid [Kawar], "Kinda," EI2nd ed., pp. 118-20. 64. G. Olinder, "The Kings of Kinda of the Family Akil al-Murtr,"

Lunds Universitets Arsskrift, N.E 23,6 (1927): 65. 65. Isfan Kawar [Shahid], "Byzantium and Kinda," Byzantinische

Zeitschrift 53 (1960): 58; and G. Rothstein, Die Dynastie der Lah-

.miden in

al-H.ira (Berlin, 1899, repr. Hildersheim, 1968),

pp. 87-94. See also I. Shahid [Kawar], Byzantium and the Arabs in the 4th Century (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 1984); and J.H.G.W. Liebeschuetz, "The Defences of Syria in the Sixth Century," in From Diocletian to the Arab Conquests: Change in the Late Roman Empire (Aldershot: Variorum Reprints, 1990): 487-99.

66. C.E. Bosworth, "Iran and the Arabs before Islam," Cambridge History of Iran 3,1 (Cambridge, 1983), p.602. The issue does not affect the argument here, but for a radically new interpretation of Kavad's role, see Patricia Crone, "Kavad's Heresy and Mazdak's Revolt," Iran 29 (1991): 21-42.

67. Shahid, "Kinda," p.118. 68. I. Kawar [Shahid], "Procopius and Arethas," Byzantinische Zeit-

schrift 50 (1957): 377; and Shahid [Kawar], "Kinda," p.118. 69. Rothstein, al-Hira, p.94. 70. Concerning the uncertainties of the historical record, see

Olinder, Kings of Kinda, pp.39-67. For a sense of the wide discrepancies in dates that are assigned to the events, see S. Smith, "Events in Arabia in the 6th Century A.D.," Journal of the British School of Oriental and African Studies (1954) : 425-68.

71. At the battle of al-Kulab, between Kufa and Basra; see Olin- der, Kings ofKinda, p.70.

72. F.M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp.42-43.

73. Al-MadCaj, Yemen, p.12. 74. Cf. Ernst Herzfeld, "Mshattai, Hira und Baidiya," Jahrbuch der

Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 42 (1921): 113-16. 75. Cf. Shahid, Byzantium in South Arabia, pp.57-59.



forerunners of umayyad art: sculptural stone from the hadramawt

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