Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
The Umayyads built Qusayr Amra around AD 711 during the reign of Walid I (AD
705-15). Walid is most famous for launching a building campaign across the Umayyad
empire that was crowned by the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Dome of the
Rock in Jerusalem.
In contrast to the religious solemnity of these grand projects, the bathhouse at Amra is
devoted to more carnal subjects. Mind you, this is no Pompeii - a bared breast is about as
daring as it gets. Walid's disapproving successor ordered the destruction of all such im-
agery. Fortunately for Amra, the far-reaching hand of Damascus spared this remote out-
post of the Eastern Desert, allowing the modern visitor to appreciate a humour not nor-
mally associated with the early expressions of Islamic society.
Excavation at the site began in the mid-1970s under a team of Spanish archaeologists,
and the frescoes were restored with funding from Austria, France and Spain. In 1985, the
frescoes were formally recognised as a 'masterpiece of human creative genius' and
Qusayr Amra became a World Heritage site.
Sights
Walking downhill from the visitors centre towards the modest little structure, it's hard not
to wonder what all the fuss is about. Even entering the main building into the
audience
hall
, where meetings, parties, exhibitions and meals were once held, is decidedly under-
whelming as the searing light of the surrounding desert all but obliterates the frescoes
within.
But then your eyes grow accustomed to the light and you are greeted by two bare-
breasted women painted on the arches, holding bowls of food (or money) against a blue
background, draped in richly detailed cloth. Five centuries before the Early Renaissance
in Europe, these frescoes depict a touchingly human quality - wrestlers warm up before
the contest, a woman dressed in a mere strip of cloth bathes without coyness in a hinted
patch of sunlight, the ear of a gazelle twitches as the herd surges ahead of the hunt, dogs
pant as they race across the
west wall
, driving wild onagers into a trap of nets. Even the
mundane construction of the baths is immortalised in the frescoes - in the compartmental-
ised images on the ceiling, depicting quarrying, moving the stones by camel, carpentry
and plastering of the walls.
These are not the normal stylised images of the day, belonging to a religious canon of
signs and symbols. Instead they appear to be a unique attempt to capture daily reality -
quite unlike the geometric imagery that has come to be associated with early Islamic art.
