The distinctive Farmers and Merchants Bank in historic #Charleston features a very unusual facade style that is typically described as “Moorish”, and details such as its horseshoe arches are commonly assumed to be an Islamic creation spread into southern Europe by the conquering Moors. This is demonstrably untrue. There are numerous existing examples of horseshoe arches in ancient Catalonian and Byzantine structures that were built long before those areas were conquered and influenced by Islam. The Islamic conquest that speed from Arabia in the 7th century would eventually engulf the Middle East, North Africa, much of Southeastern Europe, and most of Spain. The conquerors borrowed extensively from earlier architectural designs, most notably Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which was built a century before Islam began as a Greek Orthodox Church. Not that borrowing others’ ideas is a bad thing, and in fact, it was America’s extensive borrowing of styles that were popular in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries that gives Charleston its grand look today. But although brought to us largely by English and Scottish Christians, Charleston’s historic architecture is based neither on European or Christian concepts, but largely the multi-theistic ancient Romans and Greeks. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Farmers and Merchants Bank
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