Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 13: al-Azhar Mosque
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Collection:
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Archivision Base to Module 13
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Preferred Title:
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al-Azhar Mosque
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Image View:
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Detail of the north elevation
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Creator:
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unknown (Egyptian (modern))
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Location:
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site: Cairo, Urban, Egypt
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Date:
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ca. 970-972 (creation)
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Cultural Context:
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Egyptian (modern); Islamic
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Style Period:
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Fatimid
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Work Type 1:
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mosque
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Work Type 2:
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madrasa
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Classification:
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architecture
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Material:
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brick
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Technique:
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construction (assembling)
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Subjects:
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architectural exteriors
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Description:
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The mosque known as al-Azhar ('the Radiant') was begun in 970 CE as the principal mosque of al-Qahira. Completed in 972, it was made a teaching institution in 988-989, and its present renown is due to the prestige of its almost unbroken tradition as an educational centre. The original mosque was a rectangle (about 85 x 70 m) with arcades on three sides of a court. There was no arcade opposite the qibla, but there may have been a monumental portal like that at the earlier mosque built by the Fatimids at Mahdia in Tunisia or the later Cairene mosque of al-Hakim. At the centre of the qibla side a raised transept on paired columns leads to a dome over the mihrab bay, an arrangement recalling Mahdia, and domes cover the back corners of the hypostyle prayer-hall, otherwise covered with a flat wooden roof. The mosque walls preserve a considerable amount of the original stucco decoration, which has the peculiarity of being exclusively epigraphic or vegetal, omitting the interlaced geometric motifs found at the mosque
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Collection:
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Archivision Addition Module One
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Identifier:
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1A3-I-E-MAZ-A5
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Rights:
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© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.
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