Pair of doors, 9th century; cAbbasid
Iraq
Carved wood
Technical Glossary
Iraq
Carved wood
87 3/4 x 41 1/4 in. (222.9 x 104.7 cm)
Fletcher Fund, 1931 (31.119.1,.2)
The city of Samarra’ in Iraq, about 125 miles upriver from Baghdad, was founded in 836 A.D. by the caliph al-Muctasim (r. 836–42) to accommodate his unruly Turkic soldiers, who had made life impossible in the capital city of Baghdad. Samarra’ was the second and temporary capital of the cAbbasid caliphs until near the end of the ninth century.
These doors illustrate one variety of the so-called beveled style—a symmetrical abstract floral motif—and were probably originally painted and highlighted with gilding. The doors are said to have been found at Takrit, but probably came from Samarra’.
