Décoration architecturale des Artuqides de Mardin (12e-15e siècles)

Deniz Beyazit
Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes-Georges Dumézil :

sous la direction de Alastair Northedge, Université Paris-1

The Artuqids were a Turkish dynasty originally from Central Asia, who ruled for three centuries (12th to 15th century) over parts of Upper Mesopotamia. Mardin, a city located in modern South-Eastern Turkey, was one of the most important artistic centres of the Artuqids. Many monuments with architectural decoration were constructed there, which so far have not been studied in detail.

The historical and cultural context of the Artuqids seems to be particularly interesting for the following two reasons : One is their territory being in the middle of Greater Muslim empires of Anatolia, Syria, Iraq and Iran, where it forms a buffer zone. The other reason lies in the great presence of Christians among their neighbours, like the Byzantines, the Crusaders, and the Armenians. Moreover, the majority of the population of Mardin and its region was Christian : Since the beginning of the controversies of Christianity, the whole region has been part of the Tur Abdin, the “mountain of the Christian devotees”, which today still remains the centre of the patriarch of the Jacobites. This explains the existence of diverse artistic schools around an in close neighbourhood of the Artuqid’s territory.

The principal aim of this research is to analyse the architectural decoration of the Artuqids of Mardin and to understand the processes of its creation, its development, and its evolution during the three centuries of their reign. I am trying to find out whether the material of ornaments is a synthesis of the diverse schools existing around, or if one can detect a distinct Artuqid style among the architectural decoration of Mardin. Previous research shows that various artistic tendencies existed : Local and regional ideas, some of them coming from very far away, have been joined together on the monuments and their ornaments. I think that starting from a strong local tradition seen in the use of local limestone and motifs – probably based on local craftsmanship of the Tur Abdin – new motifs and techniques from surrounding centres arrived, permitting the development of a new type of decor, which can be identified as Artuqid.