Qusayr 'Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria (Transformation of the Classical Heritage)

From the stony desolation of Jordan's desert, it is but a step through a doorway into the bath house of the Qusayr 'Amra hunting lodge. Inside, multicolored frescoes depict scenes from courtly life and the hunt, along with musicians, dancing girls, and naked bathing women. The traveler is transported to the luxurious and erotic world of a mid-eighth-century Muslim Arab prince. For scholars, though, Qusayr 'Amra, probably painted in the 730s or 740s, has proved a mirage, its concreteness dissolved by doubts about date, patron, and meaning. This is the first book-length contextualization of the mysterious monument through a compelling analysis of its iconography and of the literary sources for the Umayyad period. It illuminates not only the way of life of the early Muslim elite but also the long afterglow of late antique Syria. Illustrations: 60 b/w photographs, 11 line illustrations, 2 maps

From the stony desolation of Jordan's desert, it is but a step through a doorway into the bath house of the Qusayr 'Amra hunting lodge.
Inside, multicolored frescoes depict scenes from courtly life and the hunt, along with musicians, dancing girls, and naked bathing women. The traveler is transported to the luxurious and erotic world of a mid-eighth-century Muslim Arab prince. For scholars, though, Qusayr 'Amra, probably painted in the 730s or 740s, has proved a mirage, its concreteness dissolved by doubts about date, patron, and meaning. This is the first book-length contextualization of the mysterious monument through a compelling analysis of its iconography and of the literary sources for the Umayyad period. It illuminates not only the way of life of the early Muslim elite but also the long afterglow of late antique Syria.

Annotation Qusayr'Amra is a major Islamic archaeological site, a princely bathhouse with intact frescoes dating from the mid-eighth century. Fowden offers and imaginative and compelling analysis of the iconography and artistic context of the paintings and addresses fascinating and topical questions about early Islamic culture and the West The remarkable frescoes of Quṣayr ʻAmra were probably painted in the middle of the 8th century for a Muslim Arab prince. However many problems remain with regard to the date, the patron & even the meaning of the often erotic scenes. Garth Fowden explores this treasure from the Syrian Desert Early in the morning of 8 June 1898, the members of the beduin raiding party rose in silence and made ready.