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Image against Nature

Spolia as Apotropaia in Byzantium and the dr al-Islm1

Department of Fine Arts, New York University. E-mail: fbf1{at}nyu.edu

Although the use of portable amulets and talismans in the pre-modern Islamic world is well documented, little is known about their monumental counterparts. Despite this neglect, references to apotropaia and talismans designed to offer protection from pests such as pigeons, snakes and scorpions are common in descriptions of medieval architecture in Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Iran. In many cases these consisted of pre-Islamic zoom-orphic spolia set at entrances and gateways. The function and nature of these images find close analogies in Byzantium, where antique statuary was also ascribed a talismanic value. In both cultural spheres, this value is predicated upon the ability of the image to invert or negate the power of the imaged, a function to which antique figural spolia may have been especially well suited.

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