ABSTRACT
So why did this classical revival begin, and why did it end? Was it perhaps related to the irruption of the Crusaders into the Levant? Or to a greater degree of cross-cultural contact between Byzantium and Islam in this same period,4 fostered both by Muslim military encroachment in Anatolia in the century between Manzikert and Myrocephalon and by the initial Byzantine support of the Crusaders?5 Could these sudden changes in the familiar rhythms of political life have forced Muslims to confront foreign cultures and to reconsider what they had to oer? Violently jolted by a totally unexpected invasion out of the even tenor of provincial life – for the major centres of the region lay at its eastern and western peripheries, at Cairo and Baghdad – the Muslims of the Levant suddenly found themselves at the sharp edge of political events. As they saw it, they had been catapulted to the centre of things. Naturally this realisation did not come overnight, and – as so oen happens with political events or trends – there was a time lapse before their impact made itself felt in the visual arts. And the repercussions of this new political order extended beyond the Levant. In particular, the Jazira, ruled by Turcoman dynasties and atabegs of the Zangid house, came to be politically oriented towards Syria and its concerns rather than towards Baghdad.6 is, together with the presence of a very large Christian minority, may help to explain why Byzantine and classical inuences (notably in manuscript painting) are stronger in northern than in central Iraq.7
