Houses and Living Conditions in Umayyad Societies

From 661 to 750, the Umayyad caliphate, a state ruled by a Muslim caliph, extended across Syria, Iraq and North Africa. In Iberia, the Cordoban state lasted from 756 to 1031, first under an emir, a regional Muslim ruler, and from 929 under a caliph. Houses built in these settings drew on local materials and urban histories. Excavations at Pella in Jordan expose a working household near the end of eastern Umayyad rule, while Fustat in Egypt preserves early dated houses and street layouts. In Iberia, excavated Córdoba suburbs reveal a later system of courtyards, rooms, latrines and street drainage. These examples show how a house joined sleeping, cooking, storage, animal care and work.

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Pella: rooms around a working courtyard

Pella, in the Jordan Valley of the southern Levant, was a town where excavations uncovered six courtyard houses destroyed in the earthquake of 749. Archaeologist Alan Walmsley uses their destruction deposits to reconstruct household activity. The six houses were probably two storeys, perhaps three in some cases or with roof access. Their thick double-faced stone walls formed the ground floors, while upper floors were built of unfired yellow-clay brick; some upper rooms had mosaic paving, plastered and painted walls, and stone fixtures. House G, the largest exposed example, covered about 375 square metres at ground level and nearly 750 square metres over two levels. Its decorated rooms and valuable contents mark a wealthy household.

The courtyard tied domestic tasks together. In House G, a staircase climbed along one side to an upper veranda, while a paved internal court connected doorways to ground-floor rooms. A bench against the west wall held a cooking installation. The stone trough supplied water, while feed benches along the walls served stabled animals; cows occupied rooms 8 and 9, and a pack animal, perhaps a mule or donkey, was caught in a doorway during the collapse. A cat and chickens moved about the courtyard. The western rooms changed use over time: plastering materials and basins in rooms 3 and 4 indicate earlier work there; after those rooms were closed off, the activity shifted to room 5. A closable doorway separated that workspace from room 6, where animals continued to be stabled.

Other finds show how food and water moved through this space. House G had a two-part basalt quern: turning its upper stone against the lower one ground grain into flour. Nearby Houses A and B had small courtyard ovens called tabuns beside a courtyard doorway, where household bread could be baked. Pottery included cooking vessels and oil lamps for lighting rooms after dark. Room 2 held cooking and storage pottery, a used lamp and the remains of a metal-banded wooden bucket; these finds suggest that the room served as living space, perhaps in winter. The porous jars stored water, the trough supplied animals and the courtyard drain carried water away. The quern and ovens connect house space to the wider food system. Silk clothing was found with two residents. Four gold dinars, or gold coins, lay with the person in room 2 and six more near a couple by the courtyard staircase, tangible evidence of wealth kept in the household.

Fustat: varied houses in Egypt

Fustat, the Egyptian capital under Umayyad governors, had a different building landscape. Egypt was a North African province of the caliphate. At the Istabl Antar quarter, excavations dated houses to the seventh and eighth centuries. In the upper districts, a group of early eighth-century homes stood directly on the compact natural deposits, without foundations. House size and type varied: substantial dār (houses) stood beside single-room dwellings. Large Umayyad houses often retained a rural character within the city, unlike the more urban, luxurious houses of the later Fatimid period.

Kufa: the governor’s residence and mosque

Kufa, in Iraq, supplies an official rather than ordinary household example. Aila Santi’s archaeological reassessment links the relationship between Kufa’s excavated dār al-imāra, or governor’s residence, and its congregational mosque to Umayyad political design. The mosque was the city’s main place of communal worship.

Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi: residence, water and production

In the Syrian desert, Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi joined residence to other work. Its eighth-century enclosure included living units, a mosque, olive presses and a large cistern connected to canals. The water network irrigated surrounding land and served the settlement, while the presses processed olives. The complex was an administrative and elite center rather than an ordinary household.

Cordoban houses and palace service

Córdoba, in present-day Spain, grew from the capital of an emirate into the seat of a caliphate. In the western suburb, archaeologist Rafael Clapés Salmoral dates a courtyard building with a central well and several ranges of rooms to between the mid-ninth and early tenth century. He suggests that southern rooms may have served for storage. The nearby open areas may have supported agriculture or animal husbandry, although their precise use is uncertain. Later tenth-century expansion produced more regular neighborhoods. In one caliphal suburb laid out after 929, archaeologists found 25 houses, each with a courtyard, entrance hall, main hall and latrine.

The latrine formed part of the house’s water and waste system. It could open directly onto the courtyard or turn through an angled entrance for privacy. Two raised slabs made a seat around a central opening; a steep channel carried waste out to a cesspit, often dug beneath the street. Nearby street drains carried wastewater away from houses. Here domestic sanitation depended on the layout of the room, the slope of its channel, the street and shared drainage.

The tenth-century palace city of Madinat al-Zahra stood west of Córdoba under Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. One residence, known as the House of Ya‘far, is hypothetically identified as the home of Ya‘far, a senior official under al-Hakam II, Abd al-Rahman’s son and successor. Its courtyards organized three zones: an official hall for work and reception, private rooms, and service rooms around a courtyard. In the private section, a large bedroom contained four cupboards; a marble basin in its courtyard received water from a fountain. The site’s separate East Servants’ Quarters included an oven for food preparation.

A different palace residence, the Alberca house, may have been used by al-Hakam while he was crown prince. Its rooms opened around a planted garden supplied by irrigation channels and a pool. An attached bath first served a single user and was later shared with the neighboring official Ja‘far. These installations show how the court’s private living spaces relied on separate kitchens, waterworks and service quarters.