By Amelia Foti

This StoryMap examines the culture and history of artisanship within Spain and Morocco, more specifically, it focuses on the crafts of textile work and jewelry making. Despite artisan crafts serving as a practical skill or form of economic opportunity, they also have the tendency to reflect the attitudes of both dominant and minority cultures, including their superstitions, place within a society, and ways they are changing through the passage of time.

Textiles have a particularly diverse history. Spanning throughout Al Andalus and the Maghreb, practices of weaving and embroidery are omnipresent but vary greatly between regions and groups. For example the regions of Granada and Almeria in the Iberian peninsula place particular emphasis on silk production, especially after the fall of Cordoba which was previously the center of silk work in Al Andalus. In Morocco, Amazigh people within the Atlas mountains have a robust weaving tradition, existing for primarily practical use within the home and clothing but carrying variations between the High, Middle, and anti Atlas Mountain Ranges. Additionally, the urban centers of Morocco carry specific and unique textile traditions such as rugs in Rabat and the gold threadwork and belts of Fes.

While jewelry also has a long and complex history, much of the craft exists between the axis of two groups: the Jewish and the Amazigh people. The domination of Jews in the metalworking industry mixed with the uniquely spiritual beliefs held by the Amazigh people regarding jewelry as well as the dominantly Muslim culture both groups lived in created this sense of cultural enmeshment within the Moroccan Jewelry industry. Ultimately both jewelry and textiles have the ability to physically display the unique quality of mass cultural diffusion and mixing both in Spain and Morocco, displaying a fluidity in appearance that changes with the current social norms it exists within.