Mshatta Facade

Contributed by
Mansoor

"These scenes of creatures drinking water from one fountain together - for me, it shows peace. Reminds me, of course, everything is possible, if people want."

0:000:00

The Mshatta Facade is a richly decorated stone wall from an 8th-century Desert Castle of Jordan. It is now housed at the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin. One side of the limestone relief carvings, show a scene of animals and mythical creatures harmoniously sharing water from a fountain. Mansoor, originally from Afghanistan and now living in Germany, unexpectedly found that these images stirred his memories of life in Kabul, where many cultures lived side by side, challenging the common perception of his homeland. For Mansoor, this piece of early Islamic art symbolises the potential for unity through cultural exchange across cultures and societies. Listen to his story...

Transcript

0:06 The first time when I introduced with this object was 2016. 0:12 I was at that time learning German language. I was in a German course at the Humboldt University and we participated in a tour to the Islamic Museum. And there, first time I saw this Mashatta façade. And it was really amazing. 0:33 The first thought was that how they transport this to Berlin, because it's really huge. It's almost 33 meters long and 3 meters high. It's made of limestone and it's huge. Then when I go a little near to the object, I see that..wow, it's amazing. It reminds me of masjids or the mosque that we have in Afghanistan. 1:01 They have this kind of plant bas-relief carvings. There is geometrical patterns, floral motifs, and even figures of animals. For example, we can see lion, birds, birds of prey. We can see eagles, falcons, griffons - which is a mythological creature. 1:25 And they all are drinking from one fountain, which in reality it is not possible, or could be, yeah, but not together. Then as I go deeper, I feel that it's something live. I'm living here in this, this object. I feel that this object's connecting me somehow with my culture. 1:50 These scenes of creatures drinking water from one fountain together - for me, it shows peace. Reminds me, of course, everything is possible, if people wants. 2:07 I saw that in my country, like at least in Kabul, in my area where I was living. Although it's not something that we can see in media, unfortunately, but I lived there 21 years and I know that when I was there in Afghanistan, we were living like this, peacefully with our neighbours, like a family. I had Pashtun friends, Turkmen friends, Uzbek friends. Even I had people I knew they were living around us, they were Sikhs. 2:38 We had different culture, language, and in some point, even different religion, but we were really peacefully living in Kabul. 2:47 There are some styles that you can see in this object that's not only from this region, but we can see also Byzantine art and even Persian art in this object. 3:01 Which means that the person who ordered to create this object collected artists from different corners of the world, and most probably from different ethnicities, working together and creating. You can learn from this lots of things. 3:22 It is possible. And we as a human, we should be peaceful, like we can live together in one place. Everything is possible, and this is a great example of Muslim society, that this piece of art which reflects every one of us, even in Afghanistan.