Maghrebin Andalusian-type capital

This capital surmounts one of the funereal chamber columns, on which rest the support arches of the dome. The high basket divided in two parts of almost equal heights rests on a single-bead astragal. On the lower cylindrical part of the extension of the shaft are wound garlands of wide, flat hooked leaves in shallow relief. On the second, forming a wide four-sided pad that supports the abacus with a strong overhang, is arranged an elegant axed bouquet in shallow relief, made up of wide finials and half palms framing a palmette.

This capital surely dates back to the erection of the mausoleum of Sidi Kacem Jelizi at the end of the fifteenth century, and this model was in vogue in Tunisia from the fifteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. There are in fact other specimens of the same type in several monuments of the city of Tunis, such as Midhat el-Sultan (1450), the mausoleum of Sidi Ben Arous (mid-sixteenth century), or even Dar Othman (end of the sixteenth century).

There are similar specimens everywhere in the Hispano-Moorish era, for example in the Alhambra of Granada (Spain, thirteenth - fifteenth centuries), the Al-Attarine madrasa in Fez (1323), the Chellah zawiyya in Rabat (provenance of a Merenid capital dated 1331-1348[1]), and the Sidi Belhassen mosque in Tlemcen (Algeria, 1296).

Note that the meander motif on the lower part of the basket of the Hispano-Moorish capital was developed essentially during the Almohad period. This ornamentation, which stems from the acanthus wreath of the Corinthian capital, only lends itself to a few variations created by the sculptors of Alhambra. The angular meanders are sometimes replaced by curvy chevrons or by entrelacs.