Column capital from the Castle of Caliph Yazid II,

719–723

When the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan gave these stone capitals to Princeton in 1965, it was thought that they came from the Roman city of Jerash, built in the first century CE. However, in 1981, it became clear that the capitals likely came from Qasr al-Muwaqqar, a palace built by the Umayyad caliph Yazīd II (r. 720–24). The Umayyads (661–750), the first dynasty in Islamic history, ruled during a time when Muslims were a small minority. That scholars initially mistook capitals from an Umayyad palace to be from the first century points to one of the most interesting realities of the Umayyad period: it was a time when Muslims were adopting, adapting, and otherwise interacting with the cultural traditions of the populations they now had political authority over, doing so in ways that would defy the assumptions and expectations, Eastern and Western, of later generations.

Jack Tannous, Professor of History and Hellenic Studies, Princeton University