Architectural Decorations of The Mosques of Barqah (Eastern Libya)

Abstract

A group of ancient mosques dating back to the Fatimid period were discovered in the Libyan region of Barqah, when examining its ruins, it became clear the extent of care in their architecture and decoration. The importance of the article lies in its interest in the architecture of the early Fatimid mosques in the province of Barqah, and its tracing of many of the discovered decorative patterns, trying to employ them, and making the necessary comparisons that help in dating them. The main question here is limited to how to identify the decorative artistic methods that surrounded the Fatimid mosques discovered in Barqah. Thus, the study aims to introduce the Fatimid Barqah mosques, and to highlight and analyze their decorative features. Perhaps what gives this study its original character is that it follows a group of decorative samples in some local and international museums, and subject it to study and analysis by following some research methods such as the historical, descriptive and comparative analytical method, in addition to the archaeological research method and its applied methods in the study of archaeological samples, and relying on field visits. Enables the study to sort out some of the features of the architectural decoration that characterized the architecture of the early Fatimid mosques in the province of Barqah by studying some of the decorative samples from them, its showed that there is a specific artistic style that appeared in many of the decorative examples discovered in Barqah, and it showed how consistent it was with the artistic styles coming from the mosques of Tunisia and Egypt. With regard to future studies, the study emphasizes the need to pay more attention to conducting more research on other samples that the researcher could not access due to some security conditions that the study area is going through.