IMC 2022: Sessions
Session 123: Conquest and Cultural Change in Border Areas: Islamic Burial Patterns in the Iberian Peninsula in the High Middle Ages
Monday 4 July 2022, 11.15-12.45
| Sponsor: | Proyecto 'Espacios Virtuales de la Alteridad', Universidad Complutense de Madrid / Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM), Universidade Nova de Lisboa |
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| Organisers: | Marisa Bueno, Departamento de Historia Medieval, Universidad Complutense de Madrid Tomás Cordero Ruiz, Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM), Universidade Nova de Lisboa |
| Moderator/Chair: | Marisa Bueno, Departamento de Historia Medieval, Universidad Complutense de Madrid |
| Paper 123-a | Where Are the Christians?: The Problem of Identifying Christian Cemeteries in the Middle March - Toledo as a Case Study (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies |
| Paper 123-b | Burial Patterns in the North of the Iberian Peninsula: Asturias Region as a Case Study (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - Sites, Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies |
| Abstract | This session focuses on the analysis of the Islamisation process in the peripheral areas of al-Andalus. This process has been explained in general terms according to the classic work of R. Bulliet (1979), who defended the slow progression of Isalm until it reached its peak in the 10th century. This theory is based on textual sources particularly on the notices about the number and rate of conversion of the ulemas in the urban areas of al-Andalus collected in the Tabaqāt, a genre of Islamic biographical literature that is organized according to the century in which the notable individuals (such as scholars, poets etc.) live. However, this thesis does not deal with the rural reality and is not corroborated by the archaeological record. Considering the problem to find archaeological records that can be linked without too much doubt to the process of Islamisation in the areas studied, we will focus our attention on the Islamic funerary record to test the thesis of slow Islamization. We approach the process of Islamisation from the analysis of cemeteries both, in rural and urban areas, based on radiocarbon dating and anthropological studies. In this way, through the analysis of some maqābir from peripheral areas of al-Andalus, we hope to provide new clues that will allow us to better understand the evolution of the process of Islamisation in the Iberian Peninsula. Also, this session pointed the problems of identification of Christian burials in al-Andalus through the emblematic case of Toledo to highlight the need to date the bone remains deposited in the different Museums of the Iberian Peninsula. |