A Tale of Two Legacies: Byzantine and Egyptian Influences in the Manufacture and Supply of Glass Tesserae under the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 AD)

Abstract

The connection between Umayyad and Byzantine mosaic manufacture is a debated issue: on the one hand, Arab sources report that Umayyad caliphs received craftspeople and materials to adorn religious buildings from the Byzantine emperor; on the other hand, the reliability of these texts has long been disputed among scholars, and other possible influences have been hypothesised. Was early Islamic mosaic manufacture related to Byzantine tradition and to what extent? Were materials and artisans gathered from Byzantium and/or territories under the Byzantine control? Based on a multi-analytical approach, glass tesserae from Khirbat al-Mafjar, the Great Mosque of Damascus, and the Dome of the Rock have been analysed. Results speak of a tale of two legacies, demonstrating that, parallel to a continuity with the manufacture of glass tesserae in the late antique Levant—pointing, more specifically, to a re-use of materials from abandoned buildings—legacies other than Byzantine occurred. It emerged that Egypt definitively played a role in mosaic making during the Umayyad caliphate, acting as a supplier of skilled artisans and materials.