“Inscribed Identities: Some Monumental Inscriptions in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus,” in: The Seljuqs and their Successors: Art, Culture and History, ed. Sheila Canby, Martina Rugiadi, and Deniz Beyazit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 129-143. (original) (raw)

Abstract

Studies on inscriptions in medieval Islamic monuments in Anatolia have primarily concentrated on the historical content that usually appears in these inscriptions, including the date of the foundation and the patron. Since the written sources from this region, such as chronicles and Sufi hagiographies, rarely refer to patronage with any amount of detail, monumental inscriptions often become the single source on this topic. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Anatolia and the Caucasus present intricate cases of the use of inscriptions within monuments that are expressions of a frontier society at the intersection between Byzantium, the Christian kingdom of the Caucasus, and the Islamic world. Based on case studies that include the Buruciye Medrese (1271-72) in Sivas (Turkey), the Yakutiye Medrese (1310) in Erzurum (Turkey) and the Selim Khan/ Orbelian Karavanserai (1330s) south of Lake Sevan (Armenia), this article discusses how inscription programs were part of carefully conceived schemes to guide the viewer. Thus, inscriptions were placed deliberately in order to create an itinerary through the building, in which the viewer is guided by the size and script of the inscriptions, their location and (for the reader able to understand the content), the text itself. Often more so than chronicles of the time, these inscriptions reflect the complex dynamics of identity, language, and frontier cultures that were at stake in the region.

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