Nuove considerazioni sulla datazione di alcuni siti del Darb Zubayda

As suggested by D. Whitcomb, the Darb Zubayda or Mecca Road, the pilgrimage route linking Kūfa to Mecca, was conceived not only to provide shelter, food, and water but as a system of settlements across marginal areas constituting real urban entities sustained by governmental patronage. This paper aims to discuss a peculiar architectural feature of some of those settlements, i.e. the so-called ‘formal building complex’ displayed at least by sixteen sites along the whole route and so far very little studied. It shows a sort of recurring masterplan combining a large or medium- sized administrative-palatial area and a small mosque external to its perimeter walls but abutting them. In particular, combining the archaeological data coming from the survey made in the 70s and the Islamic written sources, this paper will put forward a precise chronological range for the construction of these building complexes to the very first Abbasid period – until the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd – when the caliphal leadership in the ḥajj was at its apex.