Baalbeck (Lebanon): Fortified Walls of the Citadel: View of Arabic Inscription No. XIV, in Naskhi Mameluke Script

Object Details

Local Numbers: FSA A.6 04.GN.3782
Date/Time and Place of an Event Note: As early as 1893, Ernst Herzfeld, Moritz Sobernheim, and Max Freiherr von Oppenheim participated in Max Van Berchem's project to create a Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum. During the following 25 years, research materials such as glass negatives, photographic prints, drawings, maps, and notebooks were circulating among the four archaeologists. In the case of this glass negative, it may have been taken by Moritz Sobernheim on a visit to Baalbeck between 1899 and 1905, as mentioned in his 1922 publication, "Baalbek in Islamischer Zeit, in Voradruck aus dem Werke: Baalbek, Ergebnisse der Aus rabungen und Unterschungen in den Jahren 1898 bis 1905, Vol. 3."

Topic: Art of the Islamic World; Archaeology; Architecture; Inscriptions; Inscriptions, Arabic

See more items in: Ernst Herzfeld Papers; Ernst Herzfeld Papers / Series 4: Photographic Files

Archival Repository: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Collection Citation: Ernst Herzfeld Papers. FSA.A.06. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Ernst Herzfeld, 1946.

Arrangement: Glass Negatives, numbered from 1 to 3850, are housed in document boxes, and stored on shelves."

Collection Rights: Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.

Bibliography: Sobernheim, Moritz: "'Baalbek in Islamischer Zeit', in Voradruck aus dem Werke: Baalbek, Ergebnisse der Aus rabungen und Unterschungen in den Jahren 1898 bis 1905, Vol. 3. Berlin, 1922, Druck der Vereinigung Wissenschaftlicher Verleger, Walter De Gruyter & Co; p.22 and 23."

Scope and Contents: Handwritten notes accompanying related print in photo file 14, vol. 2 reads, "Baalb. Inscr. 14."; Additional information from Finding Aid reads, "Subseries 4.14: Photo File 14 (2 vols.), "Syria: Architecture & Inscriptions," Subseries 4.14.1: vol. 1; Image No. 129 (Negative Number: 3782). Baalbek, Inscription. XIV."; Additional information from staff reads, "Under the Ayyubids (1175-1250) and the Mamluks (1279-1516), Baalbek witnessed a revival of its political and economic role. To defend the city from crusader attacks, the Ayyubids built a citadel on the site of the temples of Jupiter and Bacchus, which continued to be used during the Mamluk period. Of this citadel and the town that existed within, the fortification wall, a gate, the towers and a mosque remain. Outside the fortified citadel, the old Shiite Mosque, the great and the small Ras al-Ain Mosques, Qubbat al-Amjad, Qubbat Douris and Qubbat as-Saadin were constructed."