THE FORMATION AND INFLUENCE OF THE MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN OMAN DURING AL-YA'ARIBA PERIOD (1034-1162 AH/1624–1749 AD)

Despite its richness, the research corpus published about Islamic architecture presents some discontinuities in the knowledge of the architecture in the lands ruled by Muslims. Similarly, the dynamics of influence that might have operated between the "monumental" architecture in these lands and their popular architectures are insufficiently addressed. Moreover, the material culture related to the Islamic civilization is almost exclusively studied as a product that has stopped evolving. The architecture produced during Al-Ya'ariba (Al- Ya'rubi) Imamate (1624-1749) is an instance of these understudied topics in the history of Islamic architecture. This research argues that Al-Ya'rubi Imamate is not only an important chapter in the history of Oman, the Arabian Peninsula, Indian Ocean, and Eastern Africa, but also the architecture of this period has created the identity of Omani architecture as we know it today. Nonetheless, there is no architectural production in this era both in the major references and scientific publications of Islamic architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries. Through field research, comparative analysis, and literature review of the history of Omani architecture, especially in the 17th -18th centuries, this research examines the military architecture in Oman during Al-Ya'ariba Imamate including its reference, and its influence on other architectures. It is a contribution to the scientific endeavour to address this specific architectural typology from the perspective of its mechanism of (trans) formation and its continuity of forms until the contemporary architecture of Oman.

Triumph of the Will: A memorial in film

Despite Hitler’s efforts to transform Berlin into Germania, the capital of the new world he envisioned and which he believed would bear comparison with Ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Rome, there is little in the way of monumental architecture to bear witness to that ambition. Though there is only limited public evidence of Hitler’s architectural hubris present either in stone or steel, the same cannot be said of film. Leni Riefenstahl’s masterpiece Triumph of the Will (1935) (German: Triumph des Willens) is the most famous propaganda film of all time and a staple of university film schools and secondary schools across the world. At the time of its creation, celluloid motion picture film was a relatively new technology and the documentary format a nascent art form. Nevertheless, it was lauded almost immediately as a visually stunning imagining of the new regime and its leader. Though the film maker was subsequently reviled for her Nazi associations, as an art work her film has retained an almost miasmic aura that justifies continued re-assessment of its standing as a monument to the Nazi regime and the horrors perpetrated in its name.

Reinventing the Capital: The Ideological Use of Monumental Architecture in Michael VIII Palaiologos’ Constantinople (1261–1282)

After the recapture of Constantinople (1261), Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259–82) re-shaped the city through extensive building activities. Though scholars have previously considered the involvement of Emperor Michael in the urban restoration of the capital, no attention has been devoted to the links between the different aspects of this programme of renewal. This paper advocates for the presence of an ambitious and systematic urban plan behind Michael VIII’s commissions focussed on the restoration of the southern shore of Constantinople and related to the political, religious, ideological, and aesthetic policies of this emperor.

Earthen architecture in the Iberian Peninsula: a portrait of vulnerability, sustainability and conservation

For more than a decade, a wide range of Spanish case studies, relating especially to rural inner or abandoned sites and areas, have been analysed by the authors as part of different research projects linked with traditional and monumental architecture, conservation strategies and earthen buildings. On one hand the studies have been undertaken in the framework of a project concerning the conservation of rammed earth in the Iberian Peninsula, including criteria, techniques, results and perspectives and, on the other, by a project about the conservation and rehabilitation of traditional earthen architecture in the Iberian Peninsula, providing guidelines and tools for its sustainable intervention. In all cases the researchers’ efforts focused on enhancing new perspectives and opportunities for rural earthen buildings, analysing landscapes, contexts, constructive features, decay and problems. The final common aim of this research is to stress these crucial topics to improve tangible or intangible opportunities for conservation strategies.

The earliest adobe monumental architecture in the Americas

Adobe bricks, or mud bricks, are construction elements which have defined major architectural traditions in the Andes over thousands of years. From Moche pyramids and the ancient city of Chan Chan in pre-Hispanic times, to Spanish casonas of the colonial period and rural houses in contemporary South America, adobe has been a central component in Andean architecture. Discovery of the remains of an early monumental building constructed primarily of adobes at Los Morteros (lower Chao Valley, north coast of Peru) places the invention of adobe architecture before 5,100 calendar years B.P. The unique composition, internal structure, and chronology of the adobes from Los Morteros show the beginnings of this architectural technique, which is associated with El Niño rainfall and the construction of the earliest adobe monumental building in the Americas. We propose that adobe architecture became a major Andean tradition after a long period of technical evolution and experimentation with both shape and composition.

SEMIOLOGY OF PRELITERATE ASTRAL FIGURES

В течение долгого времени идеограммы и графемы неолитического периода интересовали преимущественно археологов, этнологов, культурологов и историков религии. Однако с развитием и упрочением дисциплинарных позиций археоастрономии они все больше становились предметом внимания историков астрономии. Несомненная ориентированность памятников эпохи бронзы по значимым солнечным и лунным направлениям, связанным с азимутами восхода и / или захода этих светил в экстремальные моменты солнечных и лунных циклов, убедительно свидетельствует о том, что представители бронзового века были неплохими астрономами. А это, в свою очередь, означает, что для полноценного понимания оставленной ими символики (если она действительно являлась таковой) нужно обладать компетенцией астронома, хорошо знакомого с основами хотя бы сферической астрономии. Эпоха бронзы в фазе ее наивысшего развития прекрасно ориентировалась по сторонам горизонта, имела представление о тропическом годе как о цикле повторений положений Солнца относительно горизонта, знала о солнцестояниях и равноденствиях, различала азимуты самой высокой и самой низкой Луны, возвела монументальную архитектуру для регулярных наблюдений за Солнцем и Луной и даже изобрела первое, идеографическое, письмо, хотя и не повсеместно. Очень сложно представить, чтобы столь насыщенная система представлений и действий родилась разом, без эволюционного накопления деталей этого довольно сложного знания и цепочек ярких прозрений, подготовивших итоговое открытие, материализовавшееся в каменных и письменных памятниках бронзового века. Указанное обстоятельство вынуждает нас с максимальной пристальностью всматриваться в символику эпох, предшествовавших бронзовому веку, а именно – в символику неолита и энеолита. Не сохранила ли она в себе каких-то следов формализации первичных астрономических наблюдений, результаты которых были усвоены, усовершенствованы и широко использованы представителями бронзового века? В данном исследовании предпринимается попытка, использовав систему значений неолитических знаков Ариэля Голана и гипотезу стадиального называния знаков зодиака Александра Гурштейна, выявить в комплексе неолитических символов, графем и идеограмм знаки, предположительно употреблявшиеся для обозначения астрономических значений. В ходе семиологического анализа неолитических идеограмм выявлены категории символов и знаков, сложно поддающихся интерпретации с точки зрения данных археологии и этнографии, но имеющих очевидные признаки корреляций с ритмами смены сезонов тропического года. Это так называемые знаки «двух солнц», «Ф-образные знаки» и «четырехчастно-парные символы». Анализ их вероятной семантики позволяет предположить, что появлению концепта «протозодиака» могло предшествовать более простое бинарное членение года, маркируемое оппозицией зимнего и летнего солнцестояний. В связи с этим внесены уточнения в гипотезу Гурштейна, касающиеся семантики и символической значимости первого зодиакального квартета. For a long time, ideograms and graphemes of the Neolithic period were primarily the particular archaeological, ethnological, cultural, and theological interest. However, as archaeoastronomy consolidated its disciplinary positions, they were increasingly becoming a matter of attention for historians of astronomy. Indisputable alignments of archaeological remains toward the points of midsummer and midwinter risings and settings of the sun shows conclusively that people of the Bronze Age were expected to have a still greater knowledge of astronomy. The broad truth of the cyclical movements of the points of rising and setting and their correlation with the cycle of growth in nature was certainly known from very early times. That, in turn, means that the thorough understanding of the oldest symbolism to have come down to us – if it, in fact, was so – is only possible when a researcher is familiar at least with spherical astronomy. At their highest stage of development the Bronze Age people certainly knew the cardinal points of the horizon; they were aware of the tropical year as a cycle of repetition of the position of the sun against the horizon; they knew about solstices and equinoxes; some of them distinguished between azimuth positions of the highest and the lowest moon; they built monumental architecture for regular observations of the sun and the moon, and even invented writing, though not everywhere. It would be hard to imagine that such a complicated system of ideas and actions was created all at once, without an evolutionary accumulation of that rather complex knowledge and a concatenation of insights which came together to make the final discovery embodied in stone monuments of the Bronze Age. The given circumstance forces us to look closely into ideograms of the pre-Bronze Ages, namely the Neolithic and the Aeneolithic ones. Is it possible to find there some traces of formalization of primary astronomical observations which could be assimilated, developed, and widely adopted by representatives of the Bronze Age? This study attempts to identify among the corpus of Neolithic symbols, graphemes, and ideograms those of them that could be supposedly used as denotations for astronomical meanings. The article uses the system of Neolithic meanings developed by Ariel Golan as the reference body. The astronomical part of the study is based on the gradualist concept of the Western Zodiac by Alexander Gurshtein. In the course of a semiological analysis of Neolithic ideograms, categories of symbols and signs have been identified that are difficult to interpret from the point of view of archaeological and ethnographic data. However, they show clear signs of correlation with the rhythms of the seasons. Among these are, for instance: the so-called sign of ‘two suns,’ ‘f-shaped’ signs, and ‘four-part-binary symbols.’ Analysis of their probable semantics suggests that ‘protozodiac’ concept could have been preceded by a simpler binary division of the year indicated by opposition between the winter and summer solstices. In this regard, clarifications, concerning semantics and symbolic meanings of the first zodiacal quartet are included in the hypothesis by Gurshtein.

Changes in traditional building materials: the case of gypsum in Northern Spain

The rural and monumental architecture of Northern Spain gives testimony of the wide-ranging constructive possibilities of traditional gypsum for exterior and structural applications. However, today, gypsum is only used for finishing purposes. By combining a bibliographic review with local visits/interviews and experimental gypsum calcinations, we were able to document traditional processing methods and analyze the factors responsible for the decline of exterior and structural gypsum use. Obtained results are also valid for other European countries and contribute to a better understanding of the technical peculiarities of traditional gypsum, hopefully reviving traditional processing techniques to produce compatible and sustainable conservation materials.