Author: Sara Kuehn
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004186638
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 405
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Book Description
This book is a pioneering work on a key iconographic motif, that of the dragon. It examines the perception of this complex, multifaceted motif within the overall intellectual and visual universe of the medieval Irano-Turkish world. Using a broadly comparative approach, the author explores the ever-shifting semantics of the dragon motif as it emerges in neighbouring Muslim and non-Muslim cultures. The book will be of particular interest to those concerned with the relationship between the pre-Islamic, Islamic and Eastern Christian (especially Armenian) world. The study is fully illustrated, with 209 (b/w and full colour) plates, many of previously unpublished material. Illustrations include photographs of architectural structures visited by the author, as well as a vast collection of artefacts, all of which are described and discussed in detail with inscription readings, historical data and textual sources.
Author: Niels Gutschow
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319116320
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
The volume investigates the visualization of both ritual and decorative aspects of auspiciousness and protection in the form of celestial characters in art and architecture. In doing so, it covers more than two and a half millennia and a broad geographical area, documenting a practice found in nearly every corner of the world. Its transcultural approach aims at gaining insights into cultural dynamics and consistent networks and defining new historical mindmaps; it examines reciprocal effects and aspects of interwovenness in art and architecture with a view to reconceptualizing their established realms. The collection opens a window on a phenomenon in the history of art and architecture that has never before been considered from this perspective. The book focuses on a transcultural iconography of aerial spirits, goddesses and gods in art history, pursuing a methodologically innovative approach in order to redefine and develop the practice of identification and classification of motifs as a means to understanding meaning, and attempting to challenge the categories defined by academic disciplines.
Author: Sheila R. Canby
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588395898
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
Rising from humble origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs—an empire whose reach extended from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean—dominated the Islamic world from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs examines the roots and impact of this formidable dynasty, featuring some 250 objects as evidence of the artistic and cultural flowering that occurred under Seljuq rule. Beginning with an historical overview of the empire, from its early advances into Iran and northern Iraq to the spread of its dominion into Anatolia and northern Syria, Court and Cosmos illuminates the splendor of Seljuq court life. This aura of luxury extended to a sophisticated new elite, as both sultans and city dwellers acquired dazzling glazed ceramics and metalwork lavishly inlaid with silver, copper, and gold. Advances in science and technology found parallels in a flourishing interest in the arts of the book, underscoring the importance the Seljuqs placed on the scholarly and literary life. At the same time, the unrest that accompanied warfare between the Seljuqs and their enemies as well as natural disasters and unexplainable celestial phenomena led people to seek solace in magic and astrology, which found expression in objects adorned with zodiacal and talismanic imagery. These popular beliefs existed alongside devout adherence to Islam, as exemplified by exquisitely calligraphed Qur’ans and an array of building inscriptions and tombstones bearing verses from the holy book. The great age of the Seljuqs was one that celebrated magnificence, be it of this world or in the celestial realm. By revealing the full breadth of their artistic achievement, Court and Cosmos provides an invaluable record of the Seljuqs’ contribution to the cultural heritage of the Islamic world.
Author: ARAM SOCIETY
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 132671743X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
This volume comprises the proceedings of the 2014 Conferences on Zoroastrianism in the Levant and the Amorites, held at Oxford, Oriental Institute.
Author: Nasrin Askari
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004307915
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
Nasrin Askari explores the medieval reception of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma, or Book of Kings (completed in 1010 CE) as a mirror for princes. Through her examination of a wide range of medieval sources, Askari demonstrates that Firdausī’s oeuvre was primarily understood as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly elites. In order to illustrate the ways in which the Shāhnāma functions as a mirror for princes, Askari analyses the account about Ardashīr, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, as an ideal king in the Shāhnāma. Within this context, she explains why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr.
Author: Patricia Blessing
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474411304
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Anatolia was home to a large number of polities in the medieval period. Given its location at the geographical and chronological juncture between Byzantines and the Ottomans, its story tends to be read through the Seljuk experience. This obscures the multiple experiences and spaces of Anatolia under the Byzantine empire, Turko-Muslim dynasties contemporary to the Seljuks, the Mongol Ilkhanids, and the various beyliks of eastern and western Anatolia. This book looks beyond political structures and towards a reconsideration of the interactions between the rural and the urban; an analysis of the relationships between architecture, culture and power; and an examination of the region's multiple geographies. In order to expand historiographical perspectives it draws on a wide variety of sources (architectural, artistic, documentary and literary), including texts composed in several languages (Arabic, Armenian, Byzantine Greek, Persian and Turkish). Original in its coverage of this period from the perspective of multiple polities, religions and languages, this volume is also the first to truly embrace the cultural complexity that was inherent in the reality of daily life in medieval Anatolia and surrounding regions.
Author: Antony Eastmond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107167566
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 479
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Book Description
The compelling story of a thirteenth-century Christian noblewoman ransomed to the family of Saladin, made a ruler by the Mongols, and with extraordinary connections across continents and cultures from the Mediterranean to Mongolia. This book will be important for students and scholars of Byzantine, Crusader and Islamic history, art and architecture.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004512098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
The societies of the lands around the Baltic Sea underwent remarkable changes in the thirteenth century. This book examines aspects of these religious, economical, societal, and institutional innovations, such as the adaption of the Christianity, emergence of urban life, and the development of economic resources.
Author: Robert M. Sarwark
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476652570
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
Dragons are everywhere, seemingly hidden in plain sight. These mythological reptilian monsters date far into known human history in nearly every part of the world and are still prevalent in today's media and entertainment. The wide cultural, geographical, and linguistic diffusion of dragons or dragon-like creatures shows how modern humans have influenced each other through shared tales of monsters while simultaneously hinting at a shared genesis. This book introduces dragon myths and legends from around the world by following human culture's shared evolutionary past via language, folklore, the arts, and commerce. Dragons in folklore, literature, and pop culture are analyzed from Eastern and Western perspectives, leading to a dual analysis of dragons in today's popular culture and media. While other books on the topic have focused primarily on classical sources, or on cataloging various dragon tales in general, this work identifies the subtle yet profound ways in which the dragon figure or related motifs have slyly entered into our collective psyche as participants in the modern, interconnected world.
Author: Michael Featherstone
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110382288
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 704
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Book Description
Evolving from a patrician domus, the emperor's residence on the Palatine became the centre of the state administration. Elaborate ceremonial regulated access to the imperial family, creating a system of privilege which strengthened the centralised power. Constantine followed the same model in his new capital, under a Christian veneer. The divine attributes of the imperial office were refashioned, with the emperor as God's representative. The palace was an imitation of heaven. Following the loss of the empire in the West and the Near East, the Palace in Constantinople was preserved – subject to the transition from Late Antique to Mediaeval conditions – until the Fourth Crusade, attracting the attention of Visgothic, Lombard, Merovingian, Carolingian, Norman and Muslim rulers. Renaissance princes later drew inspiration for their residences directly from ancient ruins and Roman literature, but there was also contact with the Late Byzantine court. Finally, in the age of Absolutism the palace became again an instrument of power in vast centralised states, with renewed interest in Roman and Byzantine ceremonial. Spanning the broadest chronological and geographical limits of the Roman imperial tradition, from the Principate to the Ottoman empire, the papers in the volume treat various aspects of palace architecture, art and ceremonial.
