Type
Other
Language
Undetermined
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Museum With No Frontiers
Record ID
monument;ISL;tn;Mon01;22;ar
Library Location
Sfax, Medina, Tunisia
Notes
Ali bin Islam al-Bakri, judge of Sfax during that period, financed the walls of the city of Sfax, which were 2 km long. The latter defines a rectangular city whose width from east to west is 600 m, and from north to south 400 m. The walls were built with raw limestone and lime mortar. Hewn stones made of shell induction support the corners and are used as vertical supports for the walls, where we see them placed alternately, one horizontal and the other opposite. In addition to the stone pillars, pillars made of olive tree logs, grapevines, and acacia trees were used in the walls, planted in the building’s architecture. The walls are supported by sixty-nine towers, some of which are semicircular and are likely to be the oldest, some are rectangular with broken corners, and others are octagonal or hexagonal. These towers play an architectural role as supports, and form centers of observation and defense, and from here comes the importance of the corner towers, which are the Kasbah in the southwest, the Fire Tower in the southeast, the Masouda Tower in the northeast, and finally the Palace Tower in the northwest. The upper parts of the towers and walls end with barricades and merlons that take the form of a broken arch with a pointed top. The space inside the city walls communicated with the outside through two doors: Bab al-Jabali to the north, which opened to the interior areas, and Bab al-Diwan, to the south, which led to the sea. Each gate consists of two gates, one internal and the other external, closing the entrances leading to the city. This defensive group knew continuous and regular reform thanks to the presence of a rich heritage enclosed within it (endowments) managed by an agent (Nazir al-Waqf).
Sample Text
Jamila Binous “The City Walls of Sfax” in Discover Islamic Art. Museum Without Borders, 2026. 2026. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;tn;Mon01;22;ar