Horseshoe arch

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Horseshoe arch

The horseshoe arch (

Late Antique and Sasanian architecture, but it became emblematic of Islamic architecture, especially Moorish architecture. It also made later appearances in Moorish Revival and Art Nouveau styles. Horseshoe arches can take rounded, pointed or lobed
form.

History

Origins and early uses

Horseshoe arches in the Palace of Ardashir (3rd century CE), in which the springers of the arches are set back[4]

The origins of the horseshoe arch are controversial.

Roman Spain.[7] In Byzantine Syria,[5] the form was used in the Baptistery of Saint Jacob at Nusaybin (4th century CE)[8] and in Qasr Ibn Wardan (564 CE).[9]

A horseshoe arch in the Saint Jacob at Nusaybin

Another possible origin of the horseshoe arch motif is India, where rock-cut temples with horseshoe arches are attested at an early period, though these were sculpted into rock rather than constructed.[10][4] For example, horseshoe arch shapes are found in parts of the Ajanta Caves and Karla Caves dating from around the 1st century BCE to 1st century CE.[11]

Horseshoe arches made of baked brick have been found in the so-called Tomb of the Brick Arches in

Aksum (present-day Ethiopia), built during the Kingdom of Aksum and tentatively dated to the 4th century CE.[10][12] In a 1991 publication, archeologist Stuart C. Munro-Hay suggests that these could be evidence that transmission of architectural ideas took place via routes not previously considered by scholars. He suggests that the brick-built horseshoe arches could have been an Aksumite innovation based on ideas transmitted via trade with India.[10]

Further evidence of their use is also found in

Visigothic Spain, horseshoe arches are found, for example, in of the Church of Santa Eulalia de Boveda near Lugo and the Church of Santa Maria de Melque near Toledo.[20] Some tombstones from that period have been found in the north of Spain with horseshoe arches in them, eliciting speculation about a pre-Roman local Celtic tradition.[21]

Horseshoe arches in the Umayyad palace at the Citadel of Amman (early 8th century, partially restored)[22]

In early Islamic architecture, some horseshoe arches appeared in Umayyad architecture of the 7th to 8th centuries. They are found in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, though their horseshoe shape is not very pronounced.[23][24] They are also found in the Umayyad Palace at the Amman Citadel in present-day Jordan.[5]

According to Giovanni Teresio Rivoira, an archeologist writing in the early 20th century, the pointed variant of the horseshoe arch is of Islamic origin.

Mosque of Ibn Khayrun (866).[29][30]

Development in the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb

It was in

Great Mosque of Córdoba.[29] Its most distinctive form, however, was consolidated in the 10th-century during the Caliphal period, as seen at Madinat al-Zahra, where the arches consist of about three quarters of a circle and are framed in an alfiz.[34] The Córdoban style of horseshoe arch spread all over the Caliphate and adjacent areas, and was adopted by the successor Muslim emirates of the peninsula, the taifas, as well as by the architecture of the Maghreb under subsequent dynasties. Its use remained especially consistent in the form of mosque mihrabs.[28]
: 232 

In the northern Iberian Peninsula, where

San Miguel de Escalada (10th century).[36][37][38] The Mozarabs also incorporated horseshoe arches into their art, such as in illuminated manuscripts.[39][40]

Under the Almoravids (11th-12th centuries), the first pointed horseshoe arches began to appear in the region and then became more widespread during the Almohad period (12th-13th centuries). This pointed horseshoe arch is likely of North African origin.[28]: 234  Art historian Georges Marçais attributed it in particular to Ifriqiya (present-day Tunisia), where it was present in earlier Aghlabid and Fatimid architecture.[28]: 234 

As Muslim rule retreated in Al-Andalus, the

architecture of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.[42][28]

Use in other parts of the Islamic world

Horseshoe arches at the Alai Darwaza gate in the Qutb Minar Complex, Delhi (1311)

Horseshoe arches were also common in

Qutb Complex in Delhi,[48]
though they were not a consistent feature in India.

Some pointed arches with a slightly horseshoe shape appear in Ayyubid architecture in Syria.[49] It appears, exceptionally, in some instances of Mamluk architecture. For example, it appears in some details of the Sultan Qalawun Complex in Cairo, built in 1285.[50] Andalusi-style horseshoe arches are also found alongside the minaret of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, probably dating from 13th-century renovations ordered by Sultan Lajin to the older 9th-century mosque.[51]

Use in Moorish revival architecture

Jerusalem Synagogue in Prague, Czech Republic, an example of Moorish Revival architecture (1906)[52]

In addition to their use across the Islamic world, horseshoe arches became popular in Western countries in

Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, a 19th-century style associated with the British Raj.[55]

Use in Art Nouveau

Exaggerated Art Nouveau horseshoe arch at Villa Beau-Site, Brussels (1905)

Exaggerated horseshoe arches were also popular in some forms of

Art Nouveau architecture, notably in Brussels.[56] Among other examples, this can be seen on the street façade of the Cauchie House.[57]

Notes

  1. Late Antique architecture.[13][14][15]
  2. ^ The term "Mozarabic" is also applied to the culture of communities outside Al-Andalus, in the northern Christian territories, where Christians from al-Andalus immigrated and resettled, particularly in the 10th century. However, the term reboplación, among other alternatives, can be used to refer to this culture.[35]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Horseshoe arches.
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