Tales of Tiles: Shifting Narratives of a Museum’s Islamic Artifacts

Abstract

This article examines the institutional history of a modest collection of Islamic artifacts belonging to the Archaeological Museum, which was established in 1868 at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon (AUB). The study focuses on a set of five glazed Ottoman-period tile revetments, which the Museum claims came from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. These tiles are currently displayed as centerpieces in the Museum’s “Islamic Section” opened in 2015. The newfound attention to these tiles, which have been a part of the Museum’s collection since at least the 1950s, is largely informed by the Museum’s changing institutional narratives about its past life as a biblical collection connected to AUB’s then-missionary program as the Syrian Protestant College (est. 1866). This article demonstrates how a small Lebanese museum, like the one at AUB, has continuously reshaped its narratives about and approaches to its collection of Islamic artifacts vis‑a‑vis its history as well as shifting local and regional socio-political concerns since the late 19th century.

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