Rare Abbasid alabaster capital, Abbasid Syria, Raqqa, 8th-9t - Lot 37

Rare Abbasid alabaster capital, Abbasid Syria, Raqqa, 8th-9th century Architectural element in alabaster stone, with cylindrical base and square cross-section, carved in high relief with beveled palmettes arranged on each face around a vertical axis, with scrolls of protruding palmettes at each corner, and a fine border of palmette scrolls encircling the upper part. Height 26 cm; Width: 33 cm; Depth: 33 cm Damage and wear, one corner broken and glued back together. Provenance : French private collection before 1975; acquired circa 1975 by D.v.L. (1932-2000), Eindhoven, Netherlands At first glance, this capital, decorated with interlacing abstract palmettes in beveled shapes, evokes the superb stucco panels of the palaces of Samarra, the Abbasid capital founded on the east bank of the Tigris in 836, north of Baghdad, and more particularly the Samarra C style panels with their abstract plant and geometric decorations. Nevertheless, this capital is directly comparable to several capitals from the Raqqa site in Syria, including two discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by Friedrich Sarre (1865-1945) and Ernst Herzfeld (1879-1948) when they excavated numerous sites in the Euphrates-Tigris region, such as Rosafa, Ctesiphon, Baghdad, Mosul, Raqqa and Samarra (F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archäologische Archäologische Zusammenarbeit). Herzfeld, Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, D. Reimer, Berlin, 1911, vol. 2, fig. 322-323, p. 352). Two other capitals from Raqqa were published by Herzfeld in Der Wandschmuck der Bauten von Samarra und seine Ornamente, Berlin, 1923, pl. XXIV. Several other capitals of similar inspiration are preserved at the National Museum in Damascus, including one currently on display (inv. no. 13,446), as well as numerous others (inv. nos. 235,4002, 235,4019, 235,4023 or 9687-001, for example) listed in the iDAI.objects arachne (syrian capital) database. Another capital with the same decoration, attributed to Raqqa in the 8th-9th century, is now in the David Collection in Copenhagen (Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, Cosmophilia. Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen, 2006, cat. 81, p. 156). The short-lived capital of the Abbasid Empire at the end of the 8th century, the city of Raqqa, the ancient Nicephorium, was founded by the Greek king Seleucus I (r. 305-281 BC). It became a fortress under the Romans and Byzantines before being taken in 639 by the Muslims, who renamed it al-Raqqa. The Umayyad caliph Hisham embellished the city with the construction of two palaces, then with the advent of the Abbasids, the caliph al-Mansur ordered the construction of a new city to the west in 772, first called al-Rafiqa and later renamed Raqqa. At that time, the Abbasid capital was Baghdad, but al-Mansur's successor, the famous Haroun al-Rachid, disliked this capital and transferred it to Raqqa for 12 years, between 796 and 808. The city was soon abandoned for the new capital Samarra, 125 km north of Baghdad, which became one of Islam's major historical and archaeological sites, renowned for its stucco decorations. Raqqa had been completely abandoned since the arrival of the Mongols in the 13th century. The site was virtually deserted when German archaeologists Sarre and Herzfeld excavated it in the early 20th century. It was then that they discovered capitals identical to the one shown here. Expert: Laure SOUSTIEL