Early Period

Muslim rulers in the Umayyad period (661-750) occasionally used visual imagery depicting violence as an official statement of both religion and state. For a brief time between 693 and 697 (AH 74-77), mints in Syria issued a small number of gold coins showing the standing figure of the caliph dressed in fine robes with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword and an unexplained knotted cord hanging from his waist.

In contrast to the coins, which were struck for a short time in a single region, the remains of palaces in Syria and Central Asia offer richer material with figural decoration from a wider area during the early period when Islam spread from the Arabian peninsula west across North Africa to the shores of the Atlantic and east across the Iranian plateau to the steppes of Central Asia. Glass or stone mosaic floors, typical around the Mediterranean, usually show single scenes, while painted stucco, which was common everywhere, allowed not only for individual vignettes but also for multi-frame scenes decorating the interiors of rooms. In all cases, these images continue local traditions, but with new permutations and multiple interpretations.

The evidence from the Syrian steppe comes from a group of country residences and estates (Arabic qasr/qusur), often with associated bathhouses, that date from the reign of the Umayyads or slightly later.^[1077] Two examples, both attributed to the libertine prince al-Walid II in the decades before he became caliph (r.

Figure 28.1 Floor mosaic in the audience hall at Khirbat al-Mafjar near Jericho.

side of a pomegranate tree while two other deer graze peacefully on the opposite left side (Figure 28.1).^[1080]

The second important princely residence from the early period in greater Syria is Qusayr ‘Amra, an estate 61 kilometres east of Amman that was discovered in 1898, cleaned in 1974 and the subject of an interpretive monograph in 2004.^[1081] The bathhouse there preserves a com­plete programme of fresco paintings. In addition to depictions of six kings, bathing beauties, dancing girls, signs of the zodiac and other subjects, the frescoes in the main room depict a ferocious hunt. The long panel along the east wall shows salukis pursuing onagers, culminat­ing in several figures slitting the throats and disembowelling the car­casses of their prey, some of them oryx. The upper side of the west wall

Figure 28.2 Mural on the west wall of the main hall at Qusayr ‘Amra in Jordan, showing a herd of animals being corralled in a roped-off enclosure at the top, above a scene of a bathing beauty.

preserves a long scene of horsemen pursuing a herd of onagers into a net (Figure 28.2).

These animal scenes reflect a long tradition in the region.^{[1082] [1083]} The depiction of a lion attacking a weaker animal dates back millennia, possibly with astrological overtones of the triumphant lion as Leo.11 The format with the animals posed next to a tree was common in the classical world: the spandrels over the fountain in the nymphaeum of the first-century ce House of Neptune and Amphitrite at Herculaneum display a similar scene of dogs attacking stags. Large-scale hunts in fenced parks are also a frequent theme in the region, and one that continued into Islamic times, as attested by the extensive enclosure or reserve (Arabic hayr) found at the ninth-century site of Samarra in Iraq.^[1084] One of the most spectacular examples depicting such a hunt covers the walls of the rock-carved grotto at Taq-i Bustan just east of Kirmanshah in Iran, where reliefs on the side walls of the large iwan (a barrel- vaulted space open at one end) show the king hunting, probably the last great monarch of the Sasanian dynasty, Khusraw II Parviz (r.

The hunting scenes common in the desert estates of the early Syrian steppe can be interpreted in several ways.1^[1086] One explanation for their ubiquitous presence is that they depict a pastime enjoyed by the patrons, but they also display the patron's wealth as shown by his ability to organise large-scale hunts. The vignettes, especially the violent slaughter of animals, also underscore the patron's generosity and open-handedness. The scene of a lion attacking a deer, found at both Umayyad sites, may also have had erotic overtones, as the lion in Arabic poetry represents the strong impulsive lover while the gazelle is the fair maiden being pursued.^[1087] Such an erotic interpretation is strengthened by the frequent depiction in other parts of the baths of females, often naked or half-dressed. These hunting scenes may also represent the triumph over nature, a theme evoked by similar scenes in late Roman architecture, in which landscape expresses the powers of nature and the gods, challenging human control of the natural world and implicating the viewer in the dangerous world of myth.^[1088]

Narrative tales including scenes of battles and punishment shown in frescoes from contemporary Central Asia reinforce such interpretations of the triumph over nature and the power of myth. The interior of one of the larger private houses constructed in the eighth century at Panjikent near Samarkand in Central Asia had a strip-like sequence of murals showing the

Figure 28.3 ‘The legendary hero Rustam battling a dragon', mural from a residence in Panjikent, Central Asia, now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

eastern Iranian hero Rustam of Sistan battling divs (demons).^[1089] Rustam, astride his trademark chestnut stallion Rakhsh, wrestles and lassoes his enemies; he slays a serpent-like she-dragon (Figure 28.3). The murals depict­ing the mythical hero, who reappears as one of the central characters in the Shahnama, the Persian national epic compiled by the poet Firdawsi in the early eleventh century, were no doubt intended to glorify the owner of the house and link him to the epic past. But they also evoke the transitory nature of life, the possible loss of power, and the ever-present revolution of the wheel of fortune. The role of the viewer is ambiguous, as voyeur, participant and potential victim.