Name of Object:Leather binding Location:Raqqada, Kairouan, Tunisia Holding Museum:Museum of Islamic Art About Museum of Islamic Art, Raqqada. Date of Object:Hegira, end of the 3rd–beginning of 4th centuries / AD 9th–10th centuries Museum Inventory Number:C 9632 Material(s) / Technique(s):Poplar-wood press-board covered with decorated leather. Dimensions:Length 17.2 cm, width 8 cm, thickness 0.6 cm Period / Dynasty:Aghlabid, Fatimid Provenance:Kairouan. Description:Back-board. Italian format. The red-brown dye of the leather has turned black at the edges. View Short DescriptionBrown binding from Kairouan separated from the Qur'an to which it belonged. It is decorated with twists, braids, interlacing loops and squares, also found on the pulpit of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, which was strongly influenced by Syrian Umayyad art. How date and origin were established:Other identical bindings have been found still glued to the volumes of the Qur'ans to which they had belonged. Palaeographic study of their writing dates them very accurately from the end of the 3rd to the beginning of the 4th century (9th / 10th). Moreover, a Damascene binding definitely dating from the year 270 (883) shows a remarkable resemblance to this Kairouanese binding. How Object was obtained:After the abolition of the habus foundation in Tunisia, this binding board was obtained by the Museum of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in 1963. It has been displayed in the Museum of Islamic Art at Raqqada since 1986. How provenance was established:This binding belonged to the old library of the Great Mosque of Kairouan which was left abandoned in the maqsura of the prayer hall. During the 1930s it was re-classified after being discovered by some well-informed visitors. Most of the bindings were separated from the Qur'ans to which they belonged and this one suffered the same fate. This and the other bindings are almost certainly Kairouanese, since the town was a great centre of book production at the time. Selected bibliography:De Carthage a Kairouan (exhibition catalogue), 1982, p.234, cat. no. 319. Citation of this web page:Mourad Rammah "Leather binding" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;tn;Mus01;8;en Prepared by: Mourad Rammah
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