Commemorative plaque
Faro, Portugal
Infante D. Henrique Archaeological and Lapidary Museum
About Infante D. Henrique Archaeological and Lapidary Museum, Faro.
Hegira 624 / AD 1227
499
Sculpted marble.
Height 96.5 cm, width 34 cm, depth 16 cm
Almohad
Silves, Portugal.
A rectangular block with one of its faces engraved almost entirely with an inscription in relief, and on the upper part the remains of mouldings which would have fitted in with the architectural lines of the building. The inscription, framed by a narrow band of interlacing, in very florid and decorative Nasrid script, compactly fills the whole epigraphic space in ten lines.
The epigraph commemorates the construction of a tower in the town of Silves, most probably at the Porta do Sol. There was a good reason for strengthening the town's defensive capability, since, around 40 years earlier, it had been temporarily occupied by the Christians, whose advance towards the south was well known and the town was in serious danger of being captured, which is what finally took place in AH 646 / AD 1249.
On the third line of the inscription the name of the person who commissioned the construction has been deliberately obliterated. This has been identified by Lévi-Provençal as having been Abu'l-'Ula Idris, the son of Ya'qub al-Mansur, on the occasion of a journey of inspection to Silves. The obliteration of the name would have been ordered by Shuaib ibn Muhammad ibn Mahfuz when he formed a small independent kingdom here in opposition to the Almohads.
The text of the inscription reads: 'In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God bless Muhammad and his family. The construction of this tower was ordered by Amir [… son of … Abu Yu]suf, son of the caliph, amir of the faithful, Abu Ya'qub, son of the caliph, amir of the faithful, Abu Muhammad Abd al-Mu'min ibn Ali – may God accept his good works and forgive his bad! And this, in the month of Ramadan the honourable in the year 624.'
Plaque commemorating the construction of a tower in Silves Castle. The erection of this defensive structure in AH 624 / AD 1227 at the behest of Abu ‘l-Ula Idris, son of Ya‘qub al-Mansur, is a clear sign of the military pressure that the Christian kingdom of Portugal exerted over the Silves area.
Dated from the inscription to the month of Ramadan AH 624 (15 August to 13 September AD 1227).
Kept in the Town Hall, it was given to the Faro Archaeological Museum after a short time.
Found in 1874 in Silves, during the construction work for building an access road to the new cemetery, it was then kept in the Town Hall.
Borges, A. G. M., “Lápide Comemorativa da Construção de uma Torre”, in Portugal Islâmico, Lisbon, 1999, pp.220–1.
Botto, Con., Glossário Crítico dos Principaes Monumentos do Museu Archeologico Infante D. Henrique, Faro, 1899.
Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Répertoire chronologique d'épigraphie arabe, 10, Cairo, 1939, p.245.
Lévi-Provençal, E., “L'Inscription Almohade de Silves”, in Mélanges George Le Gentil, Paris, 1949, pp.257–62.
Nykl, A. R. “Arabic Inscriptions in Portugal”, Ars Islamica, Vols. 11–12, 1946, pp.167–83.
Artur Goulart de Melo Borges "Commemorative plaque" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;pt;Mus01_C;33;en
MWNF Working Number: PT 43
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