Horseshoe arch

The horseshoe arch (Arabic: قوس حدوة الحصان; Spanish: "arco de herradura" or "arco visigodo"), also called the Moorish arch and the keyhole arch, is an emblematic arch of Christian architecture, especially Visigothic architecture, subsequently adapted into Islamic architecture, especially Moorish architecture. Horseshoe arches can take rounded, pointed or lobed form.

Horseshoe arch

History

Origins and early uses
Horseshoe arches in the Church of Saint Jacob in Nisibis (4th century)[1]

The origins of the horseshoe arch are controversial.[2] It was developed by zoroastrians in Sasanian architecture such as the Taq-i Kasra in present-day Iraq and the Palace of Ardashir in southwestern Iran (3rd century CE).[3][2][4] Independently, it was also developed in Late Roman or Byzantine architecture in christian Syria,[2] where the form was used in the Baptistery of Saint Jacob at Nusaybin (4th century CE)[5] and in Qasr Ibn Wardan (564 CE).[6] Therefore, the horseshoe arch is an evolution of the semicircular arch, which appeared during the late Roman Empire and its use by early Christian architecture as evidenced by 5th century CE horshoe archs in the cathedral of Our Lady of Nazareth in Vaison-la-Romaine (Provence, France) where it is found in plan in the apse,[7] also in the arches of the nave of the second monastic church of Alahan built around 560 in Anatolia.[8] It is therefore an arch already present in the Roman Empire and in Christian architecture long before the time of the Umayyads. The horseshoe arch allowed more height than the classical (semi-circular) arch as well as better aesthetic and decorative use.[9] Muslims adapted this arch to develop their famous ultra-semicircular arch, around which the whole of Islamic architecture evolved, thus suggesting that the horseshoe arch was further developed by the Umayyad.[9][10][11]

Horseshoe arches in the Umayyad palace at the Citadel of Amman (early 8th century, partially restored)[12]

It was adopted immediately by the Islamic caliphates, with a form of it appearing in the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As in Fustat (now Cairo).[13] The first horseshoe arches were employed in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus.[14][9] At Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi (727 CE), it appears in friezes in the ruins of Qasr al-Qastal and on the walls of the Umayyad palace at the Amman Citadel in present-day Jordan.[2] Horseshoe and semicircular arches are the predominant type of arch used in the Umayyad desert castles in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

According to Giovanni Teresio Rivoira, an archeologist writing in the early 20th century, the pointed variant of the horseshoe arch is of Islamic origin.[15] This type of arch was first used in the Ibn Tulun Mosque in the 9th century.[15][16]

Development in the Iberian peninsula
Reception hall of Madinat al-Zahra, Spain (10th century)

The horseshoe arch has its origins in early Christian architecture during the late Roman Empire.[17] Later, the Visigoths of the Iberian Peninsula used them in their architecture.[18][19][20] Horseshoe arches are found, for example, in of the Church of Santa Eulalia de Boveda near Lugo and the Church of Santa Maria de Melque near Toledo.[21] Some tombstones from that period have been found in the north of Spain with horseshoe arches in them, with speculation about a pre-Roman local Celtic tradition.[22] Visigothic architecture influenced pre-Romanesque architecture of the Visigothic tradition that survived in the 9th and 10th centuries in the centers of Visigothic resistance in Catalonia and Visigothic Septimania, from there, it influenced the Romanesque architecture of the County of Roussillon and Languedoc.

With the Muslim invasion of Spain and western North Africa, horseshoe arches developed new characteristic forms in the newly conquered territories. Although it is claimed that Andalusi architecture borrowed the horseshoe arch from Umayyad Syria, there are local precedents that make it more likely that it developed locally instead. The "Moorish" arch, however, was of a slightly different than the Visigothic arch, being less flat and more circular.[23]: 163–164 [24]: 43 

The Umayyads of Al-Andalus, starting with the Emirate period, used horseshoe arches prominently and ubiquitously, often enclosing them in an alfiz, an element adapted from Roman and Visigothic architecture,[25] to accentuate the effect of its shape.[26] This can be seen at a large scale in their major work, the Great Mosque of Córdoba.[27] Its most distinctive form, however, was consolidated in the 10th-century during the Caliphal period, as seen at Madinat al-Zahra, where the arches consist of about three quarters of a circle and are framed in an alfiz.[28] The Mozarabs of the Iberian Peninsula also used horseshoe arches into their art, such as in illuminated manuscripts.[29][30] This style of horseshoe arch then spread all over the Caliphate and adjacent areas, and was adopted by the successor Muslim emirates of the peninsula, the taifas, as well as by the architecture of the Maghreb under subsequent dynasties. Under the Almoravids, the first pointed horseshoe arches began to appear in the region and then became more widespread during the Almohad period. This pointed horseshoe arch is likely of North African influence, since pointed arches were present in earlier Fatimid architecture further east.[31]: 234  After the christian conquest of Al-Andalus, the Mudéjar style, developed from the 12th to the 17th centuries under Spanish Christian rule, introduced new elements to the long history of horseshoe arches in the Iberian Peninsula.[32] Horseshoe arches also continued to be used for in the Maghreb, in the architecture of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.[33]

Use in other parts of the Islamic world
Horseshoe arches at the Alai Darwaza gate in the Qutb Minar Complex, Delhi (1311)

Horseshoe arches, of a slightly pointed form, were also used in the Great Mosque of Kairouan (9th century) and in the Mosque of Muhammad ibn Khairun (866 CE), also in Kairouan.[27][38] They were also common in Ghurid and Ghaznavid architecture (11th-13th centuries) in Central Asia, though in this region they had sharp pointed apexes, in contrast with those of the western Islamic world. Sometimes they were cusped or given multifoil flourishes.[39] Around the same time or not long afterward, they begin to appear as far east as India,[39] in Indo-Islamic architecture, such as in the Alai Darwaza gatehouse (dating from 1311) at the Qutb Complex in Delhi,[40] though they were not a consistent feature in India. Some pointed arches with a slightly horseshoe shape appear in Ayyubid architecture in Syria.[41] It appears, exceptionally, in some instances of Mamluk architecture. For example, it appears in some details of the Sultan Qalawun Complex in Cairo, built in 1285.[42] Andalusi-style horseshoe arches are also found alongside the minaret of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, probably dating from 13th-century renovations ordered by Sultan Lajin to the older 9th-century mosque.[43]

Use in Moorish revival architecture
Jerusalem Synagogue in Prague, Czech Republic, an example of Moorish Revival architecture (1906)[44]

In addition to their use across the Islamic world, horseshoe arches became popular in Western countries in Moorish Revival architecture, which became fashionable in the 19th century. They were widely used in Moorish Revival synagogues.[45][46] They are used in some forms of Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, a 19th-century style associated with the British Raj.

References
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