Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-05T14:02:12.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Planning Sāmarrā’: A Report For 1983–4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Alastair Northedge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The remarkable ruin-field of the Abbasid city of Sāmarrā’, on the banks of the Tigris 125 km north of Baghdad, and the residence of eight Caliphs between 221/836 and 279/892, is one of the most significant Islamic archaeological sites. But in neither Arabic nor western languages is there an adequate overall description of the remains. It was for this purpose that at the end of 1982 the president of the State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage, Dr. Mu’ayyad Sa‘id Bassim, agreed to a project of planning the remains of Sāmarrā’ from historical air photographs, as an adjunct to the major project of the State Organization there, the “Project for Developing the Twin Cities of Sāmarrā’ and Mutawakkiliyya”.

There are two basic reasons why a project of this kind is important at present. The first is that even 75 years after Viollet put his first soundings into the Jawsaq al-Khāqānī there is much that remains untouched and unplanned, although the plan is there to see on the surface. The second is that many archaeological sites in the Arab world are being affected by the tremendous pace of development of the past few years. Sāmarrā’ is more vulnerable than most, because of its vast size, and because the modern small town of Sāmarrā’ is placed in the middle of it. Naturally modern Sāmarrā’ wishes to grow. Although it is fortunate that a development agreement has been successfully concluded between the municipality of Sāmarrā’ and the State Organization for Antiquities, a kilometre of ruins in each direction has been destroyed, and the dumping of rubbish from the town continues in further areas. Moreover, the wall mounds at Sāmarrā’ can be easily destroyed by ploughing; and agricultural development, even in the relatively barren landscape of the east bank of the Tigris, is an important factor. Archaeological remains which are well known are less likely to be destroyed than those which are not.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 47 , 1985 , pp. 109 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1985 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu’l-Soof, B. (1968), Tell al-Suwwan Excavations, 4th Season, Sumer 24: 3–16.Google Scholar
A’dami, K. A. (1968), Excavations at Tell Es-Sawwan, Second Season, Sumer 24: 53–95.Google Scholar
Adams, R. McC. (1965), Land Behind Baghdad, Chicago.Google Scholar
Adams, R. McC. (1981), Heartland of Cities, Chicago.Google Scholar
Ahmad b. Jābir, al-Balādhurī, Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldār, ed. Goeje, de, Leiden 1866.Google Scholar
Creswell, K. A. C. (1940), Early Muslim Architecture, vol. II, 1st. ed., Oxford.Google Scholar
Directorate General of Antiquities (DGA 1940), Hafriyyāt Sāmarrā’ 1936–1939, 2 vols., Baghdad.Google Scholar
Finster, B. & Schmidt, J. (1976), Sasanidische u. Frühislamische Ruinen im Iraq, Baghdader Mitteilungen 8.Google Scholar
Grabar, O. et al. (1978), City in the Desert, 2 vols., Cambridge, Mass. Google Scholar
Herzfeld, E. (1930), Ausgrabungen von Samarra V, Die vorgeschichtliche Topfereien, Berlin.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, E. (1948), Ausgrabungen von Samarra VI, Geschichte der Stadt Samarra, Hamburg.Google Scholar
Khurdādhbih, Ibn, ‘Ubaidallah b. ‘Abdallah, Kitāb al-Mamālik wal-Masālik, ed. Goeje, de, BGA 6, Leiden 1889.Google Scholar
al-Jannābī, T. A. (1981), al-tanqīb wal-ṣiyana fi Sāmarrā’ 1978–1981, Sumer 37: 188–211 (Ar.sect.)Google Scholar
al-Jannābī, T. A. (1982), Islamic archaeology in Iraq: recent excavations at Samarra, World Archaeology 14: 305–27.Google Scholar
Kervran, M. (1977), Les Niveaux islamiques du Secteur Est de l'Apadana, Cahiers de la DAFI 7: 75–162.Google Scholar
Koechlin, R. (1928), Les céramiques musulmanes de Suse au Musée du Louvre, Paris.Google Scholar
Morony, M. G. (1982), Continuity and Change in the Administrative Geography of Late Sasanian and Early Islamic al-‘Iraq, Iran 20: 1–50.Google Scholar
Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-Taqāsim fī Ma‘rifat al-Aqālīm, ed. Goeje, de, BGA 3, Leiden 1906.Google Scholar
Northedge, A. E. (1981), Selected Late Roman and Islamic Coarse Wares, in Matthers, J. (ed.), The River Qoueiq, Northern Syria, and its Catchment, BAR S.98, Oxford.Google Scholar
Northedge, A., Bamber, A., & Roaf, M. D. (forthcoming), Excavations at Qal‘at ‘Ana 1981–2.Google Scholar
Qabtān, K. (1970), al-ḥabāb al-‘irāqiyya al-muzakhrafa, unpub. Baghdad University MA Thesis.Google Scholar
Rādhī Ḥanīn, Q. (1983), tanqibāt tell Ya‘sub al-Dīn Abī Gharaq, Sumer 39: 233–250 (Ar.sect.)Google Scholar
Rashid, S. A. (1980), Darb Zubaydah, Riyadh.Google Scholar
Ricciardi, R. V. (1970–1971), Sasanian Pottery from Tell Mahuz, Mesopotamia V/VI: 427–482.Google Scholar
Rosen-Ayalon, M. (1974), Ville Royale de Suse IV: La poterie islamique, Paris.Google Scholar
Roaf, M. D. (1983), A Report on the work of the British Archaeological Expedition in the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project, Sumer 39: 68–94.Google Scholar
Sarre, F. (1925), Ausgrabungen von Sāmarrā II: Die Keramik von Samarra, Berlin.Google Scholar
Sauvaget, J. (1948), Tessons de Rakka, Ars Islamica 13–14: 31–45.Google Scholar
Sūsa, A. (1948), Rayy Sāmarrā’ fī ‘ahd al-khilāfa al- ‘Abbāsiyya, 2 vols., Baghdad.Google Scholar
Talbot-Rice, D. (1934), The Oxford Excavations at Hira, Ars Islamica 1: 51–73.Google Scholar
Upton, J. M. (n.d.), Catalogue of the Herzfeld Archive, 4 vols.Google Scholar
Whitcomb, D. (1978), The Archaeology of al-Hasa Oasis in the Islamic Period, Atlal 2: 95–113.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D. (1968), Excavations at Siraf, First Interim Report, Iran 6: 1–22.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D. (1979), Islamic Glazed Pottery in Iraq and the Persian Gulf: the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Annali dell' Istituto Orientale di Napoli 39: 45–61.Google Scholar
Aḥmad b. Abī Ya‘qūb b. Wāḍiḥ, al-Ya‘qūbī, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. Goeje, de, BGA 7, Leiden 1892.Google Scholar
al-Baghdādī, Yāqūt b. ‘Abdallah al-Ḥamawī al-Rūmī, Kitāb Mu‘jam al-Buldān, ed. Wustenfeld, , 6 vols., Leipzig 1866–1873.Google Scholar
Zarins, J. & Zahrani, A. (forthcoming), Recent Archaeological Investigations in the Southern Tihama Plain, Atlal.Google Scholar