The Mamluks and the Venetian connection

Teheuti

kapoore said:
Hi,
I wonder why they didn't mention another lucrative product that was traded throughout this period of Venice dominance in the seas and that was the human cargo. I believe it was on Venetian ships that the Mamluks were carried from their homes around the Black Sea.
I find the whole Mamluk story a very interesting one. It's great to learn more about it. Thanks for this additional piece of info.
 

Bernice

So people, I wonder if the mamluks had images, sculptures, carvings (whatever), of people with cards? They had artists, wondering what else besides patterned carpets might they have produced?

Really informative and interesting thread. Enjoying it. So sorry that pics of males 'reading' cards appear to be almost non-existant.

Bee :)
 

kapoore

Hi,
I found a website on Mamluks
http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=423

I noticed there is a ton of material on the internet about the Mamluks.

Here are some library articles I have read. "The Muslim City and the Mamluk Military Aristocracy", "The Mamuk Military Institution", "The Circassians in the Mamluk Kingdom", "Notes on the Furusiyya Exercises and \Games in the Mamluk sultanate", "The Eunuchs in the Mamluk Sultanate." All of these articles are by D. Ayalon, and may be out of date. I copied them out of the library. Also, Aeclectic Tarot Forum history has a resident expert on the Muslim relation to Tarot, Dai Leon. Maybe he would be willing to pick up the topic on his thread and we could all learn a lot, plus correct any misconceptions...
 

Bernice

Thank you for that link Kapoore.

Two things I find interesting. The mamluks were a mix of cultures, and they were artistically creative. I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly...) that their various heritages were artistically expressed, but within Islamic strictures.

Aside from carpet & other 'patterns', I've seen online scans of several objects, vessels being the most common; bowls, vases, dishes etc. They apparently also produced mosaics - I wonder if any contained symbols or glyphs that wern't strictly islamic in origin? Or perhaps any such symbols/glyphs were islamic, but were aranged in a non-islamic way (or displayed against non-islamic scenery)?

Clutching at straws here............ The mamluk cards have a progressive order, were their mosaics similarly arranged? I find it hard to belive that the only stand-alone hand-painted 'pictures' existed in a deck of cards.


Bee :)
 

kapoore

Hi,
I think it's fair to say that during the period of interest for the Tarot, the slaves came from around the Caucasus region. The Turkish tribes had already converted to Islam, even though Turkish was the preferred common language. When you get into the world of the Mamluks you realize they were also required to take wives from their own culture, and they lived in separate cities. I think it is fair to say that their art expresses the folk culture of the Caucasus region with some elements obviously of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. This is made clear by their unique cultural expression that of the Hippodrome games, which are like medieval knight tournaments. And they had tales called Nart Sagas that were very similar to the Knight tales of King Arthur. The reason for this is that during the German invasions of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, tribes of Alans from the Caucasus fought along side the Germans. They settled in England and France and their stories became part of the cultural matrix of Europe.

There is a book called Nart Sagas from the Caucasus by John Colarusso.

This is a short Circassian poem from the first chapter.

"If our lives are to be short,
Then let our fame be great!
Let us not depart from truth!
Let fairness be our path!
Let us not know grief!
Let us live in freedom"

The peoples of this region were driven into the mountains from the never ending onslaught of invasions from the stepp. They were first of all warriors and this is why they were so prized by Kings for their armies; but they also carry with them the very ancient folk symbols from a distant past.

I have to say that I am not sure I am completely convinced that the European deck came from the Mamluks, but whether it did or not the symbols are close to the Arthurian legends. My thoughts..
 

Bernice

kapoore: And they had tales called Nart Sagas that were very similar to the Knight tales of King Arthur. The reason for this is that during the German invasions of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, tribes of Alans from the Caucasus fought along side the Germans. They settled in England and France and their stories became part of the cultural matrix of Europe.
Now I do find that interesting, "Nart Sagas". The same word used for the Norse Sagas........ tales of adventure & battles etc.

Thank you for that book title, Nart Sagas from the Caucasus by John Colarusso.

Bee :)
 

Teheuti

kapoore said:
I have to say that I am not sure I am completely convinced that the European deck came from the Mamluks, but whether it did or not the symbols are close to the Arthurian legends.
I love it when someone knowledgeable questions an established assumption! Please explain what you mean by this intriguing statement.

If the European playing card deck (we aren't speaking tarot here) did not come from the Mamluk ones, then do you think the Mamluk deck developed out of the European one or that both decks derived independently (unbeknownst to each other) from an earlier source? There is speculation that the Mamluk deck came from the Persians. Or do you think the Mamluks got the idea of playing cards from the Mongols who brought the concept from China? Or . . .?

How are a scimitar, coin, cup and polo stick close to the Arthurian legends? Or are you thinking of different symbols?

Eagerly awaiting your thoughts.
 

kapoore

Hi..
Just briefly.. There have always been some loop holes in the Mamluk origin theory. One of those is that the Mamluk cards did not have faces on the courts, while the European cards and the Chinese cards do. Plus, the European face cards look like the Chinese face cards, and so that hints at a direct influence.

The second reason is that I have always been facinated by Diane O'Donovan's work on early card history. She is well informed about Islam, and has decided that it is more likely that the emblems of the European cards began in a Spanish/Sicilian culture heavily influenced by Islamic cartography, then traveled east rather than the other way around. I would have to reread her work to remember all her points.

And finally, I have a very speculative theory about the card origins that matches more closely with the occult attributions of the four suits relating to the four elements, and medieval Platonism.

There is a travel journal that describes a very amazing banquet held in the Mongolian Court where Buddhist, Muslims, Christians, Nestorians, etc. all gathered to prove the superiority of their religions so that the Mongol King could decide. As was traditional in that time, there was a lot of heavy drinking. Eventually, the debate degenerated into drunken diatribes on each the religions' parts, that is, until everyone passed out.

Ramon Llull was a great admirer of the Franciscans who had traveled to the Mongol court. He created dialogues along the line of the banquet where the Muslims, Jews, and Christians have to present their religions to the court of undecided. His goal was to convert the Muslims, Jews, and Tartars using a universal art.

Now, suppose that the Franciscan travelers had picked something up like a mandala from the Buddhist, or an ancient symbol from the Nestorians, and they brought this souvenir back to Provencal. They called it the universal art, and perhaps along with it came some card games (unreported). Using the commentaries of Calcidius on Plato's Timaeus they devised their own version of the universal art using the four elements of fire, air, water, and earth. Maybe it was a Chinese dot card game arranged into suits with the four elements ruled by the courts. Later, it might have become an actual card game when paper became more available and yet it still retained some of the mystique of its origin as the "universal" art.

Here is Calcidius commentary on how the World Soul of the Timaeus brought together the elements: (taken from Stephen Gersh Concord in Discourse)
Attributes/combinations
Fire Sharp (King, Queen, Knight)
Subtle of Sword
Mobile

Air blunt (King, Queen, Knight
subtle of Rods)
mobile

Water corpulent (King, Knight, Queen)
mobile of Cups
blunt

Earth blunt (Queen, King , Knight)
corpulent of coins
immobile

Fire shares with air the subtle and mobile; Air shares with water the blunt and mobile; Water shares with earth the corpulent and blunt. The elements are knit together into one tight whole by the World Soul.

This speculation would make Platonism organic to the card suits, rather than imposed at a later date. The romance quality of the courts could have as easily evolved in the culture of Provencal as in the Mamluk dynasty, since there are common elements to both.

Of course, I share this knowing that this is not a provable theory. It does provide ,though, a rational for a some themes in occult Tarot--such as that it is the universal art. And this theme (whether attached to cards or not) was also in the Renaissance in Cusa and Kircher who tried to find a common tradition in diverse rites working from the Lullian combinatory art.
 

kapoore

Hi,
I hope I have not thrown a wet blanket on this discussion by taking the discussion away from the Mamluk's and their romantic tales. So, I thought I would explain another reservation on the Mamluk origins, and that is that it rests on a single early card fragment in a private collection. The fuller Mamluk decks date from 1400, which is late for European cards. Also, when I was reading about the Mamluk military structure I couldn't find something that struck me as --yes, this is it for sure the structure of the deck in the hippodrome games. I am thinking now of Diane O'Donovan's report that the only mention of cards in Islamic literature was a little slave girl who said that the cards showed her the heavens. Then, there is the other little slave girl with Casanova who was also from Russia (maybe even Circassian) who had the cards. In the Mamluk structure it seemed as if the games (like chess) were played by the eunucks who guarded the King. The regular soldiers didn't have to play those unmanly games of the "cup bearers" because they had the hippodrome games to show off their prowess. I thought that it might have been much later, even the late 14th Century, before those games were played by men (ironically returning to the topic of the thread). In one of those articles on the Mamluks there was a strange event when the eunucks and the women in the haram got together and staged a sort of coup against the king. I thought that perhaps the women were the card players and they were playing with the eunucks, and eventually they took control and card playing was less a feminine thing and more masculine.

So there are a lot of possibilities and none of them for sure. I keep open the Platonic origin simply because it is the simplest (even though maybe not the most romantic). Later as in the Tarot, the cards took on the commentaries of Calcidius, but maybe that was there all along...
 

Huck

kapoore said:
Hi,
I hope I have not thrown a wet blanket on this discussion by taking the discussion away from the Mamluk's and their romantic tales. So, I thought I would explain another reservation on the Mamluk origins, and that is that it rests on a single early card fragment in a private collection. The fuller Mamluk decks date from 1400, which is late for European cards.

I've read usually, that the larger Mamluk is later than 1400 (f.i. Simon Wintle writes of "Cards from a XV or early XVI century Mamluk pack, hand-drawn and hand-painted").

For the single card:

In this pdf of an author Jerrer el-Moor
http://www.ibnarabisociety.org/articlespdf/tarot1.pdf
in a footnote at p. 3 the author has the information from Ettinghausen, that E. de Unger acquired the card among papers from the Cairo Genizad, which appears to date from 12th or 13th century.

Just a logical point from my side : a playing card inside papers from 12th - 13th century must not naturally date from the same time.

The same partly well informed author notes, that the Topkapi cards (the Mamluks cards, as we know them) are Turkish .... :) (in the same footnote), although, as the author states, "there is evidence, that they are based on earlier Arab (Fatimid) models."

From another source, which I've only in memory, I've the information, that the papers (including the card) were bought in Spain ... if this is true, then the papers went through various hands.

The time from 12th/13th century till today is long ... many opportunities might have existed to leave a playing card as a marker inside these papers.
I've read somewhere, that they made a paper analysis, but who knows, how reliable these analysis were.

This should be the object:

dr002pic1-fragment.jpg


from http://www.manteia-online.dk/deckreviews/dr002.htm (Frank Jensen)