The Archaeology of Medieval Islamic Frontiers PDF Download

Author: A. Asa Eger
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607328771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The Archaeology of Medieval Islamic Frontiers demonstrates that different areas of the Islamic polity previously understood as “minor frontiers” were, in fact, of substantial importance to state formation. Contributors explore different conceptualizations of “border,” the importance of which previously went unrecognized, examining frontiers in regions including the Magreb, the Mediterranean, Egypt, Nubia, and the Caucasus through a combination of archaeological and documentary evidence. Chapters highlight the significance of these respective regions to the emergence of new sociopolitical, cultural, and economic practices within the Islamic world. These studies successfully overcome the dichotomy of civilization’s center and peripheries in academic discourse by presenting the actual dynamics of identity formation and the definition, both spatial and cultural, of boundaries. The Archaeology of Medieval Islamic Frontiers is a rare combination of a new reading of written evidence with results from archaeological studies that will modify established opinions on the character of the Islamic frontiers and stimulate similar studies for other regions. The book will be relevant to medieval Islamic studies as well as to research in the medieval world in general. Contributors: Karim Alizadeh, Jana Eger, Kathryn J. Franklin, Renata Holod, Tarek Kahlaoui, Anthony J. Lauricella, Ian Randall, Giovanni R. Ruffini, Tasha Vorderstrasse

Author: Gregory Williams
Publisher: PeWe-Verlag
ISBN: 3689850118
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
In the 9th century CE, the city of Aswan, Egypt was a prosperous provincial capital on the pilgrimage route to Mecca and Medina via the Red Sea, as well as trade routes connecting the Nile River to the Wadi al-Allaqi mines, Egypt's main source of gold. The city was identified by medieval writers and geographers as situated at the frontier between Muslim Egypt and Christian Nubia. Salvage excavations under the auspices of the Swiss-Egyptian mission in Syene/Old Aswan have revealed considerable evidence of medieval Islamic activity. Evidence from 9th - 10th century ceramic assemblages uncovered during these investigations is compared and contrasted with a variety of historical sources concerning this same period. The evidence suggests that a particular style of common, utilitarian ceramics produced in the Aswan region was utilized frequently and carried or exported extensively throughout Upper Egypt, the Eastern Desert, and Lower Nubia during the 9th-10th centuries and beyond. The assemblages demonstrate a considerable distinction with the corpus of common ceramics of Fustat and Lower Egypt in the early Islamic period, as well as those of contemporary Upper Nubia and sites further south along the Nile into Northeastern Africa. Aswan and the First Cataract region came to function as a central node of a network marked by a regional material culture that transcended traditional political or religious divisions between Egypt and Nubia or Muslim and Christian. The evidence from Aswan provides an alternative interpretation of medieval landscapes and regionalism, one which prioritizes the material culture of daily life over the presumed divisions of political history or religious boundaries.

Author: Bethany Walker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199987882
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1024

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Book Description
Born from the fields of Islamic art and architectural history, the archaeological study of the Islamic societies is a relatively young discipline. With its roots in the colonial periods of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its rapid development since the 1980s warrants a reevaluation of where the field stands today. This Handbook represents for the first time a survey of Islamic archaeology on a global scale, describing its disciplinary development and offering candid critiques of the state of the field today in the Central Islamic Lands, the Islamic West, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. The international contributors to the volume address such themes as the timing and process of Islamization, the problems of periodization and regionalism in material culture, cities and countryside, cultural hybridity, cultural and religious diversity, natural resource management, international trade in the later historical periods, and migration. Critical assessments of the ways in which archaeologists today engage with Islamic cultural heritage and local communities closes the volume, highlighting the ethical issues related to studying living cultures and religions. Richly illustrated, with extensive citations, it is the reference work on the debates that drive the field today.

Author: Catherine Holmes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009021907
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 706

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Book Description
This comparative study explores three key cultural and political spheres – the Latin west, Byzantium and the Islamic world from Central Asia to the Atlantic – roughly from the emergence of Islam to the fall of Constantinople. These spheres drew on a shared pool of late antique Mediterranean culture, philosophy and science, and they had monotheism and historical antecedents in common. Yet where exactly political and spiritual power lay, and how it was exercised, differed. This book focuses on power dynamics and resource-allocation among ruling elites; the legitimisation of power and property with the aid of religion; and on rulers' interactions with local elites and societies. Offering the reader route-maps towards navigating each sphere and grasping the fundamentals of its political culture, this set of parallel studies offers a timely and much needed framework for comparing the societies surrounding the medieval Mediterranean.

Author: A. Asa Eger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857736744
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
The retreat of the Byzantine army from Syria in around 650 CE, in advance of the approaching Arab armies, is one that has resounded emphatically in the works of both Islamic and Christian writers, and created an enduring motif: that of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier. For centuries, Byzantine and Islamic scholars have evocatively sketched a contested border: the annual raids between the two, the line of fortified fortresses defending Islamic lands, the no-man's land in between and the birth of jihad. In their early representations of a Muslim-Christian encounter, accounts of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier are charged with significance for a future 'clash of civilizations' that often envisions a polarised world. A. Asa Eger examines the two aspects of this frontier: its physical and ideological ones. By highlighting the archaeological study of the real and material frontier, as well as acknowledging its ideological military and religious implications, he offers a more complex vision of this dividing line than has been traditionally disseminated. With analysis grounded in archaeological evidence as well the relevant historical texts, Eger brings together a nuanced exploration of this vital element of medieval history.

Author: Kathryn J. Franklin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520380924
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Foreword -- The Silk Road, medieval globality, and 'everyday cosmopolitanism' -- The Silk Road as literary spacetime -- Techniques of worldmaking in medieval Armenia -- Making and unmaking the world of the Kasakh Valley -- Traveling through Armenia : caravan inns and the material experience of Silk Road travel -- The world in a bowl : intimate and delicious everyday spacetimes on the Silk Road -- Everyday cosmopolitanisms : rewriting the shape of the Silk Road world.

Author: Travis Zadeh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786721317
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
The story of the 9th-century caliphal mission from Baghdad to discover the legendary barrier against the apocalyptic nations of Gog and Magog mentioned in the Quran, has been either dismissed as superstition or treated as historical fact. By exploring the intellectual and literary history surrounding the production and early reception of this adventure, Travis Zadeh traces the conceptualization of frontiers within early 'Abbasid society and re-evaluates the modern treatment of marvels and monsters inhabiting medieval Islamic descriptions of the world. Examining the roles of translation, descriptive geography, and salvation history in the projection of early 'Abbasid imperial power, this book is essential for all those interested in Islamic studies, the 'Abbasid dynasty and its politics, geography, religion, Arabic and Persian literature and European Orientalism.

Author: Valentina A. Grasso
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009252968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Explores the composite cultural and political milieu of pre-Islamic Arabia, situating its history within the broader late antique context.

Author: Richard M. Eaton
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520205079
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Eaton ranges over all the important aspects of that community's history, whether political and social, or cultural and religious...This study must rank among the finest contributions to South Asian scholarship to appear for some while.

Author: A. Asa Eger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857726854
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
The retreat of the Byzantine army from Syria in around 650 CE, in advance of the approaching Arab armies, is one that has resounded emphatically in the works of both Islamic and Christian writers, and created an enduring motif: that of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier. For centuries, Byzantine and Islamic scholars have evocatively sketched a contested border: the annual raids between the two, the line of fortified fortresses defending Islamic lands, the no-man's land in between and the birth of jihad. In their early representations of a Muslim-Christian encounter, accounts of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier are charged with significance for a future 'clash of civilizations' that often envisions a polarised world. A. Asa Eger examines the two aspects of this frontier: its physical and ideological ones. By highlighting the archaeological study of the real and material frontier, as well as acknowledging its ideological military and religious implications, he offers a more complex vision of this dividing line than has been traditionally disseminated.With analysis grounded in archaeological evidence as well the relevant historical texts, Eger brings together a nuanced exploration of this vital element of medieval history. In this way, Eger's volume contributes to a more complex vision of the frontier than traditional historical views by bringing to the fore the layers of a real ecological frontier of settlement and interaction. For Eger, exposing the settlements and communities of the frontier constitutes a crucial gesture for understanding the interaction of two civilizations in a contested yet connected world. This work is thus vital for students of not only the medieval period and Byzantine and Islamic studies, but also for readers attempting to understand the ways in which frontiers and borders shape the construction of identity while functioning outside the traditionally understood state.