Revision:Contemporary and Future
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Contemporary and Future Situation
- Debate future archaeologists Muslim world over changes in ownership patterns – suggests archaeology and history working together.
Summary and Conclusions
- Direct religious component negligible beyond public / private space.
THE DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT
- Rapoport “physical embodiment of an ideal environment” – medium and outcome of social practices, home of the family unit – “the foremost and fundamental institution of human society” – primary sphere in Islamic social order.
- Environment in which social codes and gender roles are defined, taught and transferred.
- Archaeologically symbolic – metaphor for society.
- Domestic environment far from neutral
- Study of the vernacular usually neglected in favour of non-representative palatial architecture.
An Ideal Islamic Domestic Environment
- Qur’an strict rules governing privacy and sanctity of house – protection and seclusion of women fundamental here – DE split into private environs for family, inc women’s quarters with only male relatives, and semi public space for male communal sphere.
- Deliberate inward orientation of space – exterior windows rare to avoid looking inward, outside usually austere, angled entranceways denying passer by access. Not unique or initiated by Islam.
- Not ignore local cultural and environmental factors – lattice windows avoid environmental – glare sun, also religious purpose stopping view of women.
- Floor plans themselves not conclusive – can’t tell differing domains
Archaeological Recognition
- Permanent Structures in stone and brick – horizontal axis – foundations tell us room size and courtyard structures. Palaces –courtyards within palace – separate private units. – Alhambra guards houses remains on h axis show typical Islamic pattern.
- Vertical Axis – Yemeni tower houses – strategically placed grills to avoid chance encounters – most private at the top etc.
Impermanent and Ephemeral Structures
- Tents – even seemingly temporary or ephemeral structures have division between public and private – is idea greater than reality, can archaeology see changes in tents etc.
- Need to examine artefacts – personal possessions, inscriptions, furnishings, dietary remains – study context as well.
Archaeology, Domestic Space and Social Use
- Society and the Family – Orientation – little use, much inconsistency.
- House Form – conversion to Islam suggestion that houses become more rectangular as opposed to round – why? Speculate: easier to separate into public and private – modernisation tendencies.
- Acretive nature of the Muslim House – house grows as extended family does – Muslim tradition to have wife, kids and sons in household.
- Collectivistic Societies – shared value system, emphasis on containing women, gender separation inside, separate men’s accommodation – contrast to individualistic societies where mobility is high, kinship weakened and competing value systems and fashions develop. Western houses replacing collectivistic courtyard houses in Iraq - problematic in terms of air con, filled courtyards filed to provide privacy.
- Ziadeh’s study of Tiu’inik changing social and political conditions can be plotted through changes in architecture and residential patterns – collective houses abandoned and more concrete, separate multi room buildings. Away from self sufficient family economic unit, free labour to waged labour and nuclear family.
Public and Private Faces
- Expression of wealth and status in public rooms with best ornaments etc – emulation amongst lower social orders
Status, society, culture and purdah
- Qur’an states restriction of female social interaction. Protection of purity of women – not substances but “power to defile the pure blood of the group” – control mechanisms.
- Status – women are seen if they work, but if they do not work then someone else is doing the work and thus increased status.
- Cultural – Muslims in UK have to adapt to Victorian houses –separation back rooms into women’s quarters, erection of curtains etc.
Space, gender and its archaeological recognition
- Berber House – interpret divisions, objects, context relations between the two heavily engenderising archaeology.
Thresholds, Boundaries and Entrances
- 3 types: Physical, invisible and calligraphic or decorative. – creating, defining and protecting spatial divides. Usually acts as a marker between domestic, private, public, natural and even supernatural worlds.
Summary and Conclusions
- Existence demarcated public / private, male / female manifest through almost entire Muslim spectrum. Trad. Domestic environment fusion of cultural, environmental, social and religious factors + pre Islamic debt.
- Plans alone not enough for identification – various categories from material world that need to be found – existence structured environment that can be adapted to a Muslim ethos is undeniable.
- Religion not just a set of pigeonholed beliefs – seen as an agency which can act upon the whole of life and can influence many aspects of material culture
DEATH AND BURIAL
- Burial itself and funerary monument can have meaning and significance which if unlocked can provide a wealth of information on the development and diversity of Islam and the Muslim world.
- Islamic funerary archaeology is residue of individuals and communities - desire for commemoration, assuage grief, replicate social position and hierarchies in death as in life, attain piety, establish identity – study death learn lot about life.
- Usual elements are: property, social status and prestige. – also info on non orthodox ritual and individuals themselves
Muslim Burial: Ideals and Origins
- Originally little mentioned about funerary practices – indeed frowned upon. Why increase in prestige? Growth of Islamic world beyond Arabian peninsula – admixture of other cultures, pre-Islamic survivals, desire to express power and authority (secular and sacred).
Internal Cemetery Patterning
- Notion of sacred geography – proximity to a holy person will help protect grave
- Suicide graves given differing treatment, as frowned upon by the prophet.
- Muslim burial pattern Cambridge cemetery significantly different to Christian one.
Intra Cemetery Patterning
- Timbuktu life in death – from positioning of cemeteries and who in them – ethnic identity, residential patterns might be reconstructed from funerary data.
Tombs for the living and the Dead
- Display – means of display to living and creation of a lasting legacy
- Status – huge constructions in India built by ultimate inhabitant – sign of wealth and prestige.
- If taken on by a Muslim holy man – legitimisation “I am pious” took place. Different identities through same building – in life status and wealth and in death piety.
- Love – Taj Mahal near Agra – simply a love monument
- Funerary evidence imbued with “emotional legacy” – unapproachable as that might be
- Muslim Identity – materials and structures can serve to commemorate the dead but also convey information to the living – he was a good Muslim – red brick monument.
- Inversions of Reality – Wahhabi Set – true Islam – opposed to the cult of Saints – simplistic commemoration. King buried same as peasant – lack of substantial funerary monument not necessarily indicative of lack of socials status or wealth.
- Multiple Meanings – Eastern Africa Waungwana status – funerary architecture legitimise social and political claims (displays of lineage etc). Claims of the living that are pursued as opposed to the claims of the dead – I AM WAUNGWANA. Swahili Pillar Tombs - blend functions blend Indians, Muslims, Africans
- Tombs as a focus – Sacred markers forming focus for pilgrimage, physical and spiritual centres of community
- Saints and Sufis – soul of the saint lingers around the tomb – aid people who seek intervention of the saint. Whole array of buildings and amenities spring up around these tombs.
- Qubbas – mark either actual burial place – or act as a memorial shrine – can function as a focus of community attention.
- Martyrs – people transported to be buried near these martyrs.
- Political Role of Tombs – politico-religious strife from funerary monuments difficult to reconstruct archaeologically – historical data etc – active utilization and manipulation of funerary architecture and funerary remains in the struggle for religious and political loyalties and power. Soviet dislike Tombs – Turks banning Dervish tomb proems.
Funerary Epigraphy: the Language of Death
- Funeral Inscriptions used to signal gender, social status, occupation, religious piety and for claiming origins and ethnicity, ownership of someone or somewhere
- Us and You – Hui on Southern Chinese coast use Arabic funeral inscriptions to separate bolster identity against Chinese – virtually culturally indistinct. Under Communists important to historical cultural traits to establish ethnic identity bring benefits of economic assistance.
Indigenzing Islam
- As opposed to Chine, Indonesia Muslim identity could be more openly proclaimed ad indigenized without fears and pressures.
Status and Religious Affiliation
- Ottoman Turkey – elaborate work used to denote secular status and religious affiliation
- Heat-Death association water – verdure life – in Islamic heritage and reflected in graves – emphasis on water etc. Colour importance all come through in monuments and shrouds
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