Umayyad Palace Iconography

The traditional focus on early Islamic art has often obscured the specific contexts of the production of particular artworks. The famous wall paintings at the bath and audience hall of Qusayr ʿAmra and the floor mosaics at Khirbat al-Mafjar provide an opportunity for reconsidering how early Islam responded to encounters with visual and intellectual cultures of Late Antiquity. This essay attempts to explain the making of Umayyad iconography from the craftsmen’s perspectives. By placing the emphasis on the craftsmen and their practices as a repository of techniques, traditions, and cultural memory, we will explore issues of transmission, continuity, and discontinuity in art, through the lens of this segment of society. Ultimately, the goal is to move beyond the interpretation of early Islamic image as a closed symbol, thereby shifting the focus from iconography and style to a practice-centered discourse developed according to the makers’ visual economy.