THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY‘Amra and elsewhere. The frescoes of Qusayr ‘Amra in particular, in mod-
ern Jordan, with their depictions of six kings, four of them labelled in Greek
and Arabic as rulers in the late antique Mediterranean world (Caesar, Roderic,
Chosroes and the Negus), and combined with mythological and other scenes,
are an extraordinary testimony to the breadth of cultural and artistic connec-
tions among the Umayyad elite.^55 It is not surprising to find a strong Sasanian
artistic influence in these structures alongside the East Roman borrowings,
whether in iconography or in the use of large-scale stucco decoration. Nor is
it surprising that they were built in or at the edge of the ‘desert’, away from
but within reach of the major urban centres; on one level they were retreats
and country residences for their patrons, but they also tended to be located on
main routes and on sites which facilitated communication with and control of
the local tribes, and some had gardens or water installations. It is also possible
to trace continuity of village settlement between the Roman and Umayyad
periods in Transjordan and elsewhere.
The unevenness of available archaeological evidence means that it is
harder to assess the impact of Umayyad rule on the major cities, though
with some notable exceptions, especially Jerusalem and Amman, and at
well-excavated sites such as Jerash, Pella and Umm Qays, and Muslims
remained a small minority in the population as a whole. But it is clear that
mosques, administrative and commercial structures were built in main and
Figure 9.2 Nessana in the early 1990s. An important cache of sixth–seventh-century papyri
in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic was found here in 1935 during the excavation of one of
the churches.