Christian Art and Identity in Medieval Syria. Qara, Dair Mar Yakub - The “Museum Fragments” Damascus, May 20-22, 2004
Andrea
Schmidt
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2005
Vol. 8, No. 1
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv8n1crschmidt
Andrea Schmidt
Christian Art and Identity in Medieval Syria. Qara, Dair Mar Yakub - The “Museum Fragments” Damascus, May 20-22, 2004
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol8/HV8N1CRSchmidt.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute,
vol 8
issue 1
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Art
Qara
Dair Mar Yakub
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[1] An
international conference on Syriac wall paintings was held from
20 to 22 May 2004 in Damascus. It was organized by Mat
Immerzeel (Paul
van Moorsel Centre for Christian Art and Culture in the Middle
East, University of Leiden), Andrea Schmidt (University of
Louvain) and Stephan Westphalen (Deutsches
Archäologisches Institut, Berlin-Damascus). The
participants convened in the German Goethe-Institut in the
Sharia Malki which is located in the same building as the
German Archaeological Institute. The conference was supported
by donations of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung (Germany), the German
Archaeological Institute (Berlin), the Oriental Institute of
the University of Louvain and the pioneer project on Syriac
Christianity of the Leiden University.
[2] The main
interest of the symposium was focused on the newly restored
Syriac-Melkite monastery of Saint James (Dair Mar Yakub) near
the village Qara in the Qalamun Mountains. Together with
Saydnaya, "up>clula and Yabrud this village, situated of
approx. 95 km to the northeast of Damascus, is among the most
ancient Christian centres in the Qalamun. Since 1999 the German
Archaeological Institute in Damascus under the directorship of
St. Westphalen was engaged in the restoration of the wall
paintings dating from the 11th and 13th
century which had been discovered in the church of the
monastery. Twenty-two fragments of the church were already
removed from the walls in 1970 and had been kept in the museums
of Damascus and Dair c
cAtiye. Except for
two fragments, which are part of the exhibition in the National
Museum in Damascus, the fragments of Dair cAtiye
have been now returned to Dair Mar Yakub which is inhabited by
a newly founded convent of eight nuns. A. Schmidt cooperated
with the restorers investigating the history of Qara from the
5th to the 20th century. The results of
these research studies carried out between 1999 and 2004 were
discussed in a broader assessment of Christian wall paintings
in Southern Syria (Dair Mar Musa, Macarrat
Saydnaya), Lebanon (Qadisha Valley) and Egypt (Dair al-Surian).
Another subject of the conference was the cultural identity of
the Christian minorities in Syria and its cultural and
sociological background. The conference thus brought together
the practical skills of restorers with the distinguished
analysis of art historians and experts in Byzantine, Syriac and
Arabic studies.
[3] The
conference was opened the evening before with a reception in
the courtyard of the Netherlands Institute for Academic Studies
in Damascus situated in the old town of the city near Bab
Sharqi. Mat Immerzeel (Leiden) delivered
a lecture about a very popular subject in medieval church
decoration in Lebanon and Syria—that of the equestrian
saint (Holy horsemen and templar’s banners.) He
specially focused on the role of the crusader’s art in
the contacts with indigenous christians. After him, Bas
Snelders (Leiden)
spoke about the origin and the unusual Asiatic style of a
Syriac liturgical fan from the 13th century once
belonging to the Syrian monastery in Wadi Natrun which is now
preserved in the collection of the Musée Royal de
Mariemont in Belgium (The flabellum from Dair al-Surian, a
unique liturgical object from the 13th
century). He discussed arguments in favour of Mongolian
influence in the iconographic representation of the Mother of
God with child.
[4] Next day
the sessions were opened by the historical section of the
symposium. Klaus-Peter Todt (Mainz) spoke about
Greek Orthodox Christians in Southern Syriac in the period
of the crusaders. He focused on the reestablishment of the
authority of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch during the
Byzantine reconquest of Southern Syria (969-1084) and the
renewal of Melkite institutions during this period. The
question of the use of liturgical languages in the patriarchate
of Damascus—Greek or Syriac—was broached too.
Dorothea Weltecke
(Göttingen) explored the social conditions in medieval
Syriac christianity (Living during the so-called Syrian
Renaissance—observations and questions). She pointed
out conflicts between rich and poor, church dignitaries and lay
elite or aspects of cross confessional relations in a
multi-religious society. On the other hand she stressed that
the common perception of “Renaissance”, as it was
defined by A. Baumstark and P. Kawerau, must be redefined on
the basis of a more comprehensive research. Baas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden)
discussed the complex terminology which is generally used to
define the identity of Syriac christians and its sometimes
inconsistent religious and ethnic implications (From
religious association to ethnic community—Identity
formation among the Syrian Orthodox). He illustrated his
theoretical approach with examples from Syriac historiography
(John of Ephesus, Jacob of Edessa, Michael the Syrian),
Biblical exegesis (Jacob of Serug, collection of Simeon,
Dionysius bar Salibi) and art. The afternoon session was
focused on Syriac wall paintings. Mat Immerzeel read a paper on the
Syrian wall paintings of Dair al-Surian. Erica
Cruikshank Dodd
(Victoria, BC) questioned in her paper the problem of what
exactly the Syrian style is (The Syrian Style at Dair Mar
Musa). She explained her concepts in analysing frescos
from Dair Mar Musa near Nebek and from the Qadisha Valley in
the hinterland of Byblos und Tripoli. Together with the Wadi
Qadisha, the Qalamun area is among the territories in which a
local style marked the paintings of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries at most. On this occasion Andrea Schmidt (Louvain-la-Neuve)
presented to the audience Dodd’s wonderful illustrated
book which just came out from the printing press: Medieval
Painting in the Lebanon (Sprachen und Kulturen des
Christlichen Orients. 8), Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag 2004, X,
450 pp. Nada Hélou (Antelias)
presented a sample of her collection of slides concerning the
symbolic meaning of church decorations in Lebanon (Le
décor des absides dans les églises du
Liban). Then the third session of the day concentrated
specifically on Qara. Aida Kaplan (Louvain-la-Neuve) who
is working on a doctoral thesis about the nomenclature and
development of Syriac writing systems, talked about the graphic
character of a Syriac inscription which had been found on the
southern wall of the church in Dair Mar Yakub; she placed it
into the broader frame of palaeographic analysis (Le
graffito syriaque de Qara: analyse paléographique).
Stephan Westphalen and Andrea
Schmidt
(Göttingen—Louvain-la-Neuve) presented the results
of their recent research in the monastery Mar Yakub
(Historical evidences and wall paintings of Qara, Dair Mar
Yakub). Originally known in antiquity as Goaria, Qara is
mentioned as a Melkite Episcopal residence and Suffragan of the
Metropolis of Damascus for the first time at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451, where it is referred to as
‘Chonochora.’ Apart from that almost nothing is
known about the bishopric in the first millennium. The most
information—names of churches, bishops, scribes, and
other persons in Qara—is furnished by colophons from the
12th century on in Melkite liturgical manuscripts
from the Qalamun. We also know that Qara was exclusively
inhabited by Melkite Christians until the middle of the
thirteenth century. St. Westphalen reconstructed the
original location of the wall paintings preserved in the Syrian
museums and the murals found in situ in the church. He
discussed the question of a local ‘Syrian Style’ in
Qalamun comparing the paintings of Mar Musa (Syriac-orthodox
monastery) with that in Mar Yakub (Syriac-melkite monastery);
he came to the conclusion that the ‘Syrian Style’
in the 12th-13th century was not related
to any specific confession. The medium of wall painting was not
used to express theological differences. A complete catalogue
of the murals in Dair Mar Yakub and the discovered Syriac and
Greek inscriptions, as well as the history of the monastery are
published in the forthcoming book: A. Schmidt—St.
Westpahlen,
Christliche Wandmalereien in Syrien. Qara und das Kloster Mar
Yakub. Mit Beiträgen von S. Brock, M. Immerzeel und Ch.
Strube, (Sprachen und Kulturen des Christlichen Orients. 13),
Wiesbaden 2004 (in print). The paper of Mat Immerzeel (Leiden) related to
the fragmentary Wall paintings in the chapel of the Prophet
Eliah at Macarrat Saydnaya which have been
recently discovered and restored by him. His investigations are
included in the above mentioned book.
[5] The
excursion next day brought all participants to Qara (the mosque
of the village, formerly the St. Nicholas church; Mar Sarkis
church; monastery Mar Yakub); to the monastery Mar Musa near
Nebek and to the chapel of Eliah in Macarrat
Saydnaya in order to get acquainted with the specific
conservation problems of the murals. The restorers explained
the different methods of their work and emphasized the problems
that last. In the evening there was a reception in the old
damascene house of the Cultural Attaché of the German
embassy which has a splendid view of the illuminated Umayyad
mosque. Representatives of the Austrian, Belgian, Danish, Dutch
and Swiss institutions and embassies in Damascus had been also
invited.
[6] The
third day of the conference was wholly dedicated to the
practice of mural conservation. There was an interesting
exchange of techniques and methods by the experts. Ewa
Parandowska
(Cairo-Warsaw) explored which kind of techniques had been used
for restorations in Sudan and elsewhere (Roman and
Christian wall paintings from Syria, Egypt and
Sudan Conservation solutions). Wolfgang Frey from the society of
protections of monuments (Berlin) presented a paper on the
possibilities and problems of relocating removed frescos on the
walls. He illustrated his speech by examples of removed and
re-installed wall paintings of the 19th century in
the “Neues Museum” in Berlin. The conference
concluded with a round table discussion on further conservation
work which has to be done in the church of Dair Mar Yakub. The
participants engaged in a keen debate on the 22 fragments which
had been removed in 1970 from the walls and which are now in a
very crumbled state. How to restore them and where to preserve
them? Does it make sense to relocate them in the church or
should they be given to a museum? Present at the discussion
were also the superior of Mar Musa, Father Paolo
dall’Oglio, the abbess of Mar Yakub, Soeur Agnes de la
Croix, and the doyen of the faculty of art of the university of
Damascus, Elias Zayat.
[7] In the
afternoon all participants were honoured by a cheerful
reception by the Syriac Orthodox patriarch Mar Ignatius Zakka
Iwas in his new residence in Macarrat Saydnaya. The
director of the patriarchal library, Father Hazail Soumi (Paris-Damascus), gave
us a vivid report about the history and composition of the
Syriac manuscript collection in the patriarchate (Histoire
du fond des manuscripts syriaques du patriarcat
syriaque-orthodox à Damas). He is actually engaged
in a systematic reorganisation of the manuscript collection and
its cataloguing. Therefore the library with the manuscript
collection was closed. But as a compensation he showed us
digitized photos of some of the most interesting and beautiful
manuscripts which attracted the attention of the scholars. At
the end of the day H. Soumi gave the participants a tour of the
new patriarchal library which has been well organised by
him.