Material Evidence and Narrative Sources

Daniella Talmon-Heller, Ph.D. (1999), is senior lecturer at the Department of Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and author of Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyubids (1146–1260) (Leiden: Brill 2007).Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Ph.D. (2006), is lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology and the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is author of The Road Inns (Khāns) in Bilād al-Shām (Oxford: BAR International Series 2010) and director of excavations at Tiberias.

“This is a volume that has accumulated researchers’ papers rich both, in providing information concerning contemporary documentation and archaeological findings, questioning the objective validity of reported statements as sources as well as in putting to doubt already established perceptive paths while suggesting new interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to historical inquiry.”Stavros Nikolaidis in Journal of Oriental and African Studies 24 (2015) 461-466."It's praiseworthy interdisciplinary approach and the strong focus on the nexus of material and textual evidence recommend it in whole and part to graduate seminars and specialists in the field."George Malagaris in Journal of Islamic Studies 28, 3 (2017)

• AcknowledgementsContributorsList of abbreviationsList of illustrationsINTRODUCTIONDaniella Talmon-Heller, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, and Yasser Tabbaa, Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle EastPART ONE – ECONOMICS AND TRADEJere Bacharach, Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Teaching and Studying Numismatic EvidenceStefan Heidemann, How to Measure Economic Growth in the Middle East? A Framework of Inquiry for the Middle Islamic PeriodDonald Whitcomb, Ladies of Quseir: Life on the Red Sea Coast in Ayyūbid TimesPART TWO – GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITYNitzan Amitai-Preiss, What Happened in 155 A.H. / 771–72 A.D? The Testimony of Lead SealsSimonetta Calderini and Delia Cortese, The Architectural Patronage of the Fāṭimid Queen-Mother Durzān (d. 385/995): An interdisciplinary analysis of literary sources, material evidence and historical contextBethany J. Walker, On Archives and Archaeology: Reassessing Mamlūk Rule from Documentary Sources and Jordanian FieldworkPART THREE – MATERIAL CULTUREMiriam Frenkel and Ayala Lester, Evidence of Material Culture from the Geniza – An Attempt to Correlate Textual and Archaeological FindingsYasser Tabbaa, Originality and Innovation in Syrian Woodwork of the Twelfth and Thirteenth CenturiesMiriam Kühn, Two Mamlūk minbars in Cairo: Approaching Material Culture through Narrative SourcesPART FOUR – CHANGING LANDSCAPESNimrod Luz, Icons of Power and Religious Piety: The Politics of Mamlūk PatronageOren Shmueli and Haim Goldfus, The Early Islamic City of Ramla in Light of New Archaeological Discoveries, G.I.S. Applications, and a Re-examination of the Literary SourcesDaphna Sharef-Davidovich, The Role of the Imperial Palaces in the Urbanization Process of Istanbul, 1856–1909PART FIVE – MONUMENTSHani Hamza, Turbat Abū Zakariyya Ibn ʿAbd Allāh Mūsa (chief surgeon of al-Bīmāristān al-Manṣūrī) and his social status according to his endowment deed (waqfiyya) Maximilian Hartmuth, Oral tradition and architectural history: a sixteenth-century Ottoman mosque in the Balkans in local memory, textual sources, and material evidenceYoram Meital, Deliberately Not Empty: Reading Cairo’s Unknown Soldier MonumentIndex