A rare and important Mamluk carved marble panel, Palestine/Greater Syria, 14th/15th century

of square form pierced at the centre, the decorated surface featuring a monumental roundel carved with overlapping and interlacing polygons with ribboned borders converging on an eight-pointed star-form opening at the centre, the spandrels filled with trilobed palmettes

Three Faces of Monotheism, an exhibition at The Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem, 2007-2012

Three Faces of Monotheism, The Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem, 2007, pp.156-7, no.92

In generally good condition, some wear and rubbing to stone surface consistent with age, some abrasion to edges and on reverse, some rust marks on surface and calcification around the central opening, as viewed.
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The Mamluks left an enduring presence on the skyline of cities such as Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem by patronising many architectural works, notably religio-funerary foundations. The importance accorded to such sponsorship is attested by the words of a Mamluk author, Ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hasan, who equated building with life, as opposed to decay and death (al-kharāb mawt wa’l-‘imāra ḥayāh) (Behrens-Abouseif 2007, p.15).

This impressive stone panel is carved with a complex geometric pattern attesting to the care lavished on the ornamentation and surface articulation of public buildings. Stylistic parallels can be found in a number of Mamluk buildings in Cairo: the carved openwork stone screens in the courtyard of the madrasa-khanaqah of amir Sanjar (1303-4); the high-relief roundels flanking the portal of the mosque of Sultan Hasan (1356-61); and the stone minbar of Sultan Qaitbay (1483) in the mosque-khanqah of Sultans Farag and Barquq.

The design, which features an interlacing stellar motif within a roundel with vegetal palmettes in the spandrels belongs to a decorative repertoire associated with the arts of the book and can be seen on a number of media, notably illumination. For example, the frontispiece from a Mamluk Qur’an, circa 1370, from the mosque of Mustafa Chorbaji Mirza in the National Library, Cairo, inv. no. 54, fol.1r, features a similar motif with an interlacing stellar design heightened with vegetal ornaments (Baer 1998, p.65, no.B). The reign of Sultan Qaytbay (r.1468-1496) saw the emergence of new, more naturalistic floral patterns integrated into existing geometric architectural designs (Behrens-Abouseif 2007, p.90). It is possible that the present architectural panel belonged to this period of innovation and revival.