magic spolia in medieval islamic architecture of northern syria 103 JULIA GONNELLA COLUMNS AND HIEROGLYPHS: MAGIC SPOLIA IN MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE OF NORTHERN SYRIA Medieval Islamic architecture in Northern Syria is unthinkable without the use of spolia. Despite the abundance of local building material—there are ample limestone quarries in the area and even basalt occur- rences both northwest and south of Aleppo—numer- ous buildings from the Zangid (1127–1183), Ayyubid (1171–1260), and also the Mamluk (1260–1516) periods exploited older architectural elements to a great extent. In Northern Syria, it is extremely easy to make use of already existing building materials. Te architectural heritage of this region, with its numerous ruined and abandoned sites from not only the early Christian but also the classical and ancient Near Eastern periods, is exceptionally rich, which must have been very con- venient, especially for the ambitious building projects undertaken by the Zangid and Ayyubid rulers. During their reign, entire towns, castles, and city walls were refurbished completely or at least in great part, mosques were either renovated or newly constructed, and new building types, such as law schools (sing. madrasa), Suf monasteries (sing. khānqāh), and hospitals (sing. māristān or bīmāristān) appeared for the frst time. 1 Tat architects regularly returned to abandoned sites within reach is confrmed both by literary sources and architectural studies: the minaret of the Great Mosque in Aleppo was built with stones from the former cathe- dral nearby, 2 the Great Mosque in Harran incorpo- rated elements from the neighboring Sabaean temple of the moon, 3 and the Great Mosque of Diyarbakır, too, exploited its predecessor church. 4 Te new fortifcations were especially in need of good-quality stone material: the citadel of Aleppo boasts numerous ancient column shafs, mainly in the glacis but also in the citadel wall, as well as heavy, monolithic Jewish tombstones, which were skillfully recycled in various parts of the enormous defense system. 5 However, secondhand material was not only cheap and easily available—it was also ofen charged with additional meaning, and there were many instances in which medieval crafsmen clearly reused ancient archi- tectural fragments on purpose. An important motive seems to have been the desire to refer to a specifc event or period in the past: Zangid and Ayyubid archi- tecture frequently contained historical allusions and commemorated certain ancient sites: for example, the Shuaybiyya madrasa was built by the Zangid ruler Nur al-Din (d. 1174) on the location of the frst Umayyad mosque of Aleppo. 6 Te stones from a tower built by the Umayyad general Maslama b. Abd al-Malik (d. 738), reused in the late Ayyubid Aleppine Qinnas- rin Gate (bāb Qinnasrīn), are an explicit historical refer- ence to the famous warrior, whose siege of Constanti- nople between 715 and 718 earned him lasting fame. It would have been more than appropriate to commemo- rate him by including remnants from one of his towers in a gate that was to protect the city against the inf- del foes. 7 In addition, we also fnd a large number of Crusader spolia, whose political and ideological impli- cations have recently been reexamined. 8 Te Crusader capitals, deliberately turned upside down and fank- ing the mihrab of the Abu ’l-Fida madrasa in the Nur al-Din mosque in Hama, 9 are well-known examples of war trophies, as is the much more illustrious portico of the Crusader church of St. Jean d’Acre, splendidly integrated into the Cairene madrasa of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad. 10 Tere are plenty of other Crusader spo- lia in Northern Syria, mainly columns and capitals reused in various mihrabs in mosques, madrasas, and