Adapting Christian and Chinese symbolism of dragons in Anatolian Seljuk architecture
Many associate dragon figures in mediaeval Anatolia to the cross-cultural convergence between Muslim and Christian societies in the early eleventh century, few ascribe the roots of its iconographic significance to Chinese ancestry. ‘More than any other creature, the dragon is identified with China,’ in which it is a calendar animal and a symbol of fertility, imperial sovereignty and the might of water and fluids. Along similar lines, the mythical creature is affiliated with sainthood, heroism, astro-cosmological beliefs and magic in the Islamic world, overlapping with Christian cult of saints running back to the late third century. Seljuk dragons, one that features long stylised bodies in knotted form, profile presentation, almond-shaped eyes and wide-open jaws with sharp teeth and fork tongues, are a synthesis of these backgrounds. They are sometimes shown in conjunction with the tree of life, or vegetal motifs, or other animals like eagles, snakes and lions, or human figures. In all its shifting shapes and forms, dragons are predominantly depicted in mirror image, representing its dual identity of good and evil, light and darkness, and moon and sun, on stone-carved and plaster reliefs above or around entrances and portals of both secular and religious monuments. This paper aims to explore how dragons become a stylistically different but thematically similar icon across cultures in Anatolia Seljuk architecture, on account of the three approaches by Kuehn, Pancaroğlu and Uyar.
Between the 11th and 13th century, when the Seljuk Turks dominated Anatolia and established the Sultanate of Rum, the multi-ethnic society which accommodated Greek-speaking Christian and Turko-Islamic groups bred cultural exchange and syncretic art production. Greek artists, as discussed by Uyar, were well-respected in the Rum imperial courts for their masterful painting skills, especially their ‘naturalistic’ renderings. In essence, their contribution to the Seljuk artistic expression heralds the revival of Byzantine traditional images like the Holy Riders, and its singular identity in the bodily contacts of bilateral cultural reckonings in both literary and architectural occurences. The Holy Riders, widely-identified as St Theodore and St George, the Greek warrior saints originated in the 4th century, are depicted as mounted dragon-slayers with beards, wearing military attire and thrusting long spears at the necks or throats of dragons. What this triumphant moment underpins is the humankind’s ability to take over vicious impulses, as well as the rulership in the earthly realm. At the same time, Byzantine dragons are emblematised by their upraised gaping jaws with bifid tongues, body patterned with spots, pretzel-like knots in the midsection and upward-curving tails.
They suggest an apotropaic association of ancient times, perfectly encapsulated in the relief carving of St Theodore at the Church of the Holy Cross in Aght’amar, dated 915-921. Parallel to this is a hunting scene on carved stucco relief found in Alâeddin Köşkü, Konya, datable to 1200. Only the horsemen here wear turbans instead of haloes and the regardant dragon is juxtaposed with a lion. Akin to the Islamic ‘courtly cycle’ that involves hunting, music making and dancing, this panel recontextualises the religious mediation of dragon-slayers in Christian iconography to the Islamic princely authority. The symmetrical disposition is analogous to a pre-Iconoclastic decorative scheme of the repetitive Holy Riders imagery on textiles, which epitomises an impactful pictorial narrative of good over evil, even in the absence of inscriptions. Evidently, Greek artists incorporated the Byzantine visual language in the Islamic iconographic repertoire, forming a prototype for ‘Seljuk-style’ dragons that transcends conceptual and temporal distances.
Moving westward, further adaptation is recorded on the entrance of Susuz Han in Antalya, built in the middle of the 13th century. Above the muqarnas on the side niche of the main portal is a pair of mirrored dragons. On top of each finds an angel in high relief, facing each other and reaching their hands for something in the middle that is now destroyed. The heads of the two dragons meet in the middle of the arch and a human head sits between their open mouths. It can be assumed to have celestial connotations, which will be discussed in more details below. Their elongated bodies extend towards the column capitals of the mihrab in a spiral form with alternately curved and pointed undulations. The wings behind the back and the short legs are reminiscent of the dragons depicted on the Talisman Gate in Baghdad, dated 1222. In the words of Öney, Kuehn and Daneshvari, the human head could be a personification of the Sun, often presented with dragons as a common decorative scheme on metalwork from greater Khurasan to the Anatolian region since the 12th century.
This association “reveals an interest in the translating of entities beyond the domain of humankind, such as the two luminaries, into human guise.” In this context, it is notable that this symbolism of the Sun and the Moon can be manifested in two ways in Islamic art. First is the lozenge pattern, or the crescent shape, of the open mouths of dragons exhibited here as the Moon, and the human figure between or above them as the Sun. The two luminaries are among the representations of the eight planets in Islamic astrology, whereas Hellenistic astrology sees the Sun and the Moon as part of the seven planets instead. The latter serves a myriad of similar functions such as the use of spells to manipulate the future and appropriating the supernatural power for protection. Following this line of interpretation, the dragon-angel imagery at Susuz Han is likely to bear an apotropaic charge, protecting travellers and caravans from harmful events like raids.
Second is the nature of the eclipse dragon al-jawzahar or al-tannin itself. It is simultaneously viewed as the astro-cosmological sign of the constellation Draco in Greek astrology and the eighth planet Cauzehar in Islamic astrology, which holds ecliptic and evil power as it blocks the sun and brings darkness. For that reason, the analogy of light over darkness is sometimes attested by the depiction of dragon heads eating its tails, and other times by the stretched body with knots, which can also be recognised as planets in astrological sense. Take a look at the pair at the Sultan Han and the Karatay Han in Kayseri, built in the early 13th and 12th century respectively. They demonstrate a variant of the confronting Seljuk-style dragons on the portal: one’s bodies extended in rhythmic heart shape ornaments down the arch, and another’s bodies interlaced to form three-ringed chains on both sides as a band over the arch.
On one hand, considering the function of Han, the sideroad lodge for travellers to rest and recover from their journeys, these dragon representations serve as spiritual conduits for guest protection. On the other hand, their astrological connection asserts harmony and equilibrium in the universe. Supporting this notion is the relief on 1164 Cizre Bridge, where eight panels of zodiac descriptions are shown in high relief in white limestone. The panel with a dragon figure and a centaur together shows Sagittarius (the centaur) and the planet Cauzehar. While the dragon on the left has one big pretzel-like knot as the body, the centaur on the right is made regardant, turning backwards with his bow and arrow targeted at the mouth of the opponent, an interesting convention when compared to other illustrations of regardant dragons facing dragon-slayers. It is also worth noting that they are of similar visual weight, which gives the centaur and Cauzehar a similar standing, reinforcing the astrological association of balance and stability in the celestial sky.
Beside the extraterrestrial affiliation, dragon is one of the twelve animals in the ‘Chinese-Uighur’ calendar, a well-established system in Central Asia that associates each year with an animal, namely rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Many of these are seen in tandem with dragons to construct either a horizontal line-up or a twisted composition. That is to say, animals are not shown in full cycle, with some getting repetitive presence, some not being represented and some having various styles. Imbued with a sporadic calibration are the relief from Gök Medrese at Sivas (1271) and Karatay Han at Kayseri (1240). In Gök Medrese, there is an animal scroll relief on either side of the portal façade, featuring a prominent dragon head in the centre amidst the cluster of animal heads, including snake, horse, sheep, tiger, hare, mouse, bull, dog and elephant. In Karatay Han, the frieze up on the left hand side of the main portal presents 14 animals on relief. Just like Gök Medrese, it figures in creatures of wonder and calendar animals together. While Öney elaborated no further than the descriptions, Kuehn postulates a talismanic reading in lieu of a narrative account on the cusp of the vulnerable zones of monuments.
Acculturation reveals itself in spaces of mobilised cultures and craftsmen, where motifs inform collective artistic impressions, due to the establishment of the courtly might. Throughout this essay, the multicultural model of representation and reception in mediaeval Anatolia is discussed with the manifold symbolisms of dragon. Despite the geographical and semantic distance, it is believed that viewers of different cultural backgrounds are all ‘informed’ readers, in the sense that contextual affinity enables much the same conclusion. However, what could have been missing, albeit without certainty, is their correspondence to the ‘Chinese dragon’ motif in Islamic literary sources. In Qazwini’s 1280 manuscript, the dragon image refers to a beast called tannin with symbolic indication of chaos and evil in Hebrew mythology. It is said that tannin is a terrifying animal with “an immensely long body, a big head, flashing eyes, a wide mouth and belly, and many teeth, devouring countless animals. It also has two great wings like a fish’s fins”. The ruthless creature is so powerful and chaotic that God had to send angels to counter its destructive behaviours. On that note, Kuehn made a remark on the late appearance of Chinese-inspired depictions, which was not absorbed into the vein of syncretic visual culture in Anatolia until the 16th century. In sum, the prevalent Christian-Islam binary in the conceptualisation and interpretation of the dragon iconography in Seljuk Anatolia perhaps overlooks the fact that the then nascent identity was the culmination of all cultural forebears.
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