Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T08:08:06.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The archaeology of Islam in Britain: recognition and potential

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Andrew Petersen
Andrew Petersen*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wales Lampeter, Ceredigion, SA48 7ED, UK (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What did the British know about Islam before the modern period? The author reviews evidence which shows that there was contact with, and appreciation of, Muslim culture from almost the time of the Hegira in the seventh century. This appreciation varied and was reflected in different choices of material culture: coinage, ceramics and architecture, in successive periods from the eighth century to the nineteenth.

Keywords

BritainIslamic archaeologycoinageceramicsarchitecture
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 318 , December 2008 , pp. 1080 - 1092
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abulafia, D. 1994. The role of trade in Muslim-Christian contact during the Middle Ages, in Agius, D. & Hitchcock, R. (ed.) The Arab influence in medieval Europe: 1–24. Reading: Ithaca Press.Google Scholar
Adams, L. 1979. Early Islamic pottery from Flaxengate, Lincoln. Medieval Archaeology 23: 218–9.Google Scholar
Allan, J. W. 1994. The influence of the metalwork of the Arab Mediterranean on that of medieval Europe, in Agius, D. & Hitchcock, R. (ed.) The Arab influence in medieval Europe: 44–62. Reading: Ithaca Press.Google Scholar
Anon, . n.d. Regents Park Mosque. London: Islamic Cultural Centre.Google Scholar
Aylmer, G. E. 1999. Slavery under Charles II: the Mediterranean and Tangier. English Historical Review 114: 378–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boon, G. C. 1986. Welsh hoards 1979-1981. Cardiff: National Museum of Wales.Google Scholar
Castle, E. & Kennedy, C. (ed.). 1996. People to Coventry: migration and settlement from early times. New edition 1996, first published in the series 'Coventry through time' issued by the former Coventry Archives Educational Service in 1989. Coventry: Coventry Archives.Google Scholar
Chambers, W. 1763. Plans, elevations, sections and perspective views of the gardens and buildings at Kew Surrey. London: W. Chambers.Google Scholar
Charleston, R. J. 1959. The Luck of Edenhall: a notable acquisition for the nation. The Conoisseur February 1959: 329–36.Google Scholar
Clark, J. 1983. Medieval enamelled glasses from London. Medieval Archaeology 28: 152–6.Google Scholar
Cook, J. M. 1958. A fragment of early medieval glass from London. Medieval Archaeology 2: 173–7.Google Scholar
Creswell, K.A.C. 1989. A short account of early Muslim architecture. Revised and supplemented edition by Allan, J. W.. Aldershot: Scolar Press.Google Scholar
Crinson, M. 1996. Empire building: Orientalism and Victorian architecture. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dunning, G. C. 1961. A group of English and imported medieval pottery from Lesnes Abbey, Kent, and the trade in early Hispano-Moresque pottery to England. Antiquaries Journal 41: 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Awaisi, , Al-Fattah, A. & Nye, M.. 2006. Time for change: report on the future of the study of Islam and Muslims in universities and colleges in multicultural Britain. Dundee: Al-Maktoum Institute Academic Press.Google Scholar
Engle, A. 1982. Glass finds at Acre throw new light on the Syro-Frankish group. Readings in Glass History 13/14: 34–65.Google Scholar
Folsach, B. von. 1996. By the light of the crescent moon: images of the Near East in Danish art and literature, 1800-1875. Copenhagen: David Collection.Google Scholar
Gillingham, J. 1999. Richard I. NewHaven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Grey, T. & Pearce, J.. 2007. Excavating the Bow Porcelain Factory of London. The Archaeologist 64: 26–7.Google Scholar
Grierson, P. 1974. Muslim coins in thirteenth-century England, in Kouymjian, D. K. (ed.) Near Eastern numismatics, iconography, epigraphy and history: studies in honor of George C. Miles: 387–91. Beirut: American University of Beirut.Google Scholar
Halliday, F. 1992. Arabs in exile: Yemeni migrants in urban Britain. London: Tauris.Google Scholar
Hannah, P. 2000. Did King Offa become a Muslim? Available at http://www.answeringislam.org/Hoaxes/offa.html.Google Scholar
Heath, I. 2007. The representation of Islam in British Museums (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1643). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Huggins, P. J. 1969. Excavations at Sewardstone Street, Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1966. Post-Medieval Archaeology 3: 47–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurst, J. 1977. Spanish pottery imported into Medieval Britain. Medieval Archaeology 21: 68–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansson, I. 1985. Kalifatet och barbarerna i norr [The caliphate and the northern barbarians], in Islam: konst och kultur [Islam: art and culture] (Exhibition catalogue in Swedish & English): 51-70, 179–92. Stockholm: Statens Historiska Museum.Google Scholar
Jardine, L. 2004. Gloriana rules the waves: or the advantages of being excommunicated (and a woman). Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 14: 209–22.Google Scholar
Jarrett, C. 2007. Ottoman pipes and a meerschaum bowl from four London excavations. Society for Clay Pipe Research Newsletter 71: 36–41.Google Scholar
Kromann, A. & Roesdahl, E.. 1996. The Vikings and the Islamic lands, in von Folsach, K., Lundbaek, T. & Mortensen, P. (ed.) The Arabian journey: Danish connections with the Islamic world over a thousand years. Aarhus: Prehistoric Museum Moesgård.Google Scholar
Killock, D. & Meddens, F. with contributions by Armitage, P., Egan, G., Gaimster, D., Jarret, C., Keys, L., Philpotts, C., Sabel, K., Tyson, R. & Willmott, H.. 2005. Pottery as plunder: a seventeenth-century maritime site in Limehouse London. Post-Medieval Archaeology 39(1): 1–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lillywhite, B. 1964. London coffee houses: a reference book of coffee houses of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
London Museum. 1967. Medieval catalogue (revised edition). London: London Museum.Google Scholar
Lowick, N. 1973. A new type of solidus mancus. Numismatic Chronicle 1973: 173–82.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B. n.d. Petrographic analysis of Syrian stonepaste ceramics. Unpublished report.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B. 1995. Defining Syrian stonepaste: ceramic petrographic analysis of pottery from Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, in Allan, J. W. (ed.) Islamic art in the Ashmolean. Part 2 (Oxford Studies in Islamic Art 10): 1–18. Oxford: Oxford University Pres.Google Scholar
Matar, N. 1997. Muslims in seventeenth-century England. Journal of Islamic Studies 8: 63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matar, N. 1998. Islam in Britain 1558-1685. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCutcheon, C. 2006. Medieval pottery from Wood Quay, Dublin: the 1974-6 waterfront excavations (National Museum of Ireland Medieval Dublin Excavations 1962-81, Ser. B, vol. 7). Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.Google Scholar
Moss, V. 2002. The defence of Normandy 1193-8, in Gillingham, J. (ed.) Anglo-Norman Studies 24: 145–63. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.Google Scholar
Mynard, D. C. 1969. A group of post-medieval pottery from Dover Castle. Post-Medieval Archaeology 3: 31–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, C. 2007. Images of the Orient. London: Victoria & Albert Museum.Google Scholar
O'neil, B. H. St. J. 1932. Miscellanea. Archaeologia Cambrensis 87: 193–4.Google Scholar
Pearce, J. & Martin, J.. 2003. Oriental blue and white porcelain found at archaeological excavations in London: research in progress. Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 67: 99-109Google Scholar
Porter, V. 1981. Medieval Syrian pottery (Raqqa ware). Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.Google Scholar
Porter, V. 2000. Coins of the Sa'dian Sharifs of Morocco from the coast of Devon, in Kluge, B. & Weisser, R. (ed.) Proceedings of the 12th International Numismatic Congress, Berlin 1997. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.Google Scholar
Porter, V. & Ager, B.. 1999. Islamic amuletic seals: the case of the Ballycottin cross brooch, in Gyselen, R. (ed.) La science des cieux: sages, mages, astrologues (Res Orientales 12): 211–18. Bures-sur-Yvette: Groupe pour l'étude de la civilisation du Moyen-Orient.Google Scholar
Ray, A. 1992. Spanish lusterware imported into England: three new fourteenth-century examples, in Gaimster, D. & Redknap, M. (ed.) Everyday and exotic pottery from Europe: studies in honour of John G. Hurst: 225–45. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Routh, E. 1905. The English occupation of Tangier (1661-1683). Transactions of the Royal Historical Society NS 14: 61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, M. 2007. Forgotten champion of Islam: one man and his mosque. The independent 2 August 2007.Google Scholar
Scarfe-Beckett, K. 2003. Anglo–Saxon perceptions of the Islamic world (Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 33). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siddiqui, A. 2007. Report on Islam in British universities produced for HEFCE. Available at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/.Google Scholar
Sweetman, J. 1991. The Oriental obsession: Islamic inspiration in British and American art and architecture 1500-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thurley, S. 1993. The Royal palaces of Tudor England: architecture and court life. NewHaven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, K. 2001. The excavation of an Elizabethan/Stuart waterfront site on the north bank of the River Thames at Victoria Wharf, Narrow Street, Limehouse, London E14. Post-Medieval Archaeology 35: 53–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, L & Backhouse, J.. 1991. The making of England: Anglo-Saxon art and culture, AD 600-900 (exhibition catalogue). London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Wild, A. 2004. Coffee: a dark history. New York & London: Norton Press.Google Scholar
Williams, D. W. 1983. Islamic glass vessel fragments from the Old Vicarage, Reigate, Surrey. Medieval Archaeology 27: 143–6.Google Scholar
Wren, C.(SIR). 1750. Parentalia: or memoirs of the family of Wrens. London: Stephen Wren, printed for T. Osborn & R. Dodsley.Google Scholar