Medieval artisans built a glass-walled palace in the desert

Enlarge / A) Mosaic tesserae; (B) glass inlays; (C) fragment of millefiori glass tile; D) cobalt blue flask neck; (E) rim fragment of painted glass bowl. (credit: Schibille et al. 2018)

In 836CE, Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim ordered the construction of a new capital city on the east bank of the Tigris River, in modern-day Iraq. Since 762, al-Mu'tasim's predecessors had ruled from Baghdad, but the presence of the caliph's newly formed Turkish regiments had stirred unrest in the city, so he wanted to pack up his troops and move to a new capital. This also allowed him to build his own grand palace complex with walls of inlaid glass and intricate mosaics.

Archaeologist Nadine Schibille of the University of Orleans and her colleagues recently analyzed fragments of the glass that once decorated the gleaming walls of Samarra's palaces and mosques, and their chemical composition offers some hints about the gritty reality of the industry and trade that built the glass palaces.

Fit for a caliph

Glass inlays of clear and purple geometric shapes and multicolored millefiori tiles, along with elaborate mosaics, decorated the walls of the audience chamber at Dar al-Kilafa palace. That glittering opulence may have been an allusion to the story of King Solomon's glass palace, but the appearance of al-Mu'tasim's audience chamber also created a physical manifestation of the caliph's power. The awe and wonder that visitors experienced when they stepped into the glass-walled audience chamber were meant to transfer to the ruler himself.

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