Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T15:10:32.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early mediaeval Iraqi Lustre-painted and associated wares: typology in a multidisciplinary study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Robert B. Mason
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The study of ceramics in the mediaeval Middle East has traditionally been divided into two separate fields, those of archaeology and art history. Archaeologists have generally focused on the finds from their own sites, seeking only precise comparanda for publication. High-quality glazed ceramics such as lustre-wares were made in a restricted number of centres and distributed over a very large area, and thus may be a small percentage of the total ceramic assemblage. No archaeologist constrained to analysis of material from their own site has ever had the opportunity to examine the fine wares as a complete corpus. Broad all-encompassing approaches to the fine wares have only been attempted by art historians utilizing traditional connoisseurship techniques and focusing on the whole vessels which have appeared on the art market since the nineteenth century.

This paper represents the reporting of a component of a larger study that is the first attempt at providing a chronology for Middle Eastern élite glazed wares dating from about 700 to 1340 (all dates are in the “common era” or AD) based on the methodologies of archaeological ceramic study. This forms part of a comprehensive multidisciplinary study, including the application of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) with X-ray spectroscopy and petrographic analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 59 , 1997 , pp. 15 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1997 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

West Asian Department, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario M2S 2C6, Canada.

References

Adams, R. McC., 1965. Land Behind Baghdad, Chicago and London.Google Scholar
Adams, R. McC., 1970. Tell Abu Serifa: a Sassanian Islamic ceramic sequence from south central Iraq, Ars Orientalis 8, 87–119.Google Scholar
Adams, R. McC., 1981. Heartland of Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Adams, R. McC., and Nissen, H. J., 1972. The Uruk Countryside: The Natural Setting of Urban Societies, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Adams, W. Y., 1979. On the argument from Ceramics to History: a challenge based on evidence from medieval Nubia, Current Anthropology 20 No. 4, 727–44.Google Scholar
Aghanabati, A., 1986. Geological Map of the Middle East, Geological Survey of Iran.Google Scholar
Ali, A. J., 1976. Heavy mineral provinces of the recent sediments of the Tigris-Euphrates basin, Journal of the Geological Society of Iraq 10, 33–46.Google Scholar
Allan, J. W., 1971. Medieval Middle Eastern Pottery, Oxford.Google Scholar
Allan, J. W., 1981. Islamic ceramics. In Eastern Ceramics and Other Works from the Collection of Gerald Reitlinger, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.Google Scholar
Allan, J. W., 1991. Islamic Ceramics, Oxford.Google Scholar
Arnold, D. E., 1985. Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Baltzer, F., and Purser, B. H., 1990. Modern alluvial fan and deltaic sedimentation in a foreland tectonic setting: the lower Mesopotamian plain and the Arabian Gulf, Sedimentary Geology 67, 175–97.Google Scholar
Bronson, B., and Ho, C., 1991. A Silk Road in southern Thailand, In the Field: Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History 09/October 1991, 1 and 18.Google Scholar
Caiger-Smith, A., 1985. Lustre Pottery: Technique, Tradition and Innovation in Islam and the Western World, Faber and Faber, London.Google Scholar
Creswell, K. A. C., 1940. Early Muslim Architecture, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ettinghausen, R., 1954. Notes on the lustreware of Spain, Ars Orientalis 1, 133–56.Google Scholar
Fehervari, G., 1973. Islamic Pottery: a Comprehensive Study based on the Barlow Collection, Faber and Faber, London.Google Scholar
Fukien Provincial Museum (Fukien-sheng po-wu-kuan) 1975. Report of the excavations of the grave of Liu Hua of Ming-Kuo of the Five Dynasties (Wu-tai ming-kuo Liu Hua mu fa-chuen pao-kao), Wen-wu 1, 63–73.Google Scholar
Grube, E. J., 1974. Three Abbasid ceramic bowls, Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 61, 74–9.Google Scholar
Grube, E. J., 1976. Islamic Pottery, London.Google Scholar
Grube, E. J., 1994. Cobalt and Lustre: The First Centuries of Islamic pottery, Nour Foundation, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hansman, J., 1967. Charax and the Karkheh, Iranica Antiqua 7, 23–197.Google Scholar
Hodges, R., and Whitehouse, D., 1982. Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, Duckworth, Gloucester.Google Scholar
Holt, P. M., 1986. The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517, Longman, London.Google Scholar
Hourani, G. F., 1995. Arab Seafaring, expanded edn., ed. Carswell, J., Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, M., 1968a. The Palmette Tree: a study of the iconography of Egyptian lustre painted pottery, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 7, 119–26.Google Scholar
Jenkins, M., 1968b. Muslim: an early Fatimid ceramist, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 05 1968, 359–69.Google Scholar
Kennedy, H., 1986. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century, Longman, London.Google Scholar
Kervran, M., 1977. Les niveaux islamiques du secteur oriental du tépé de l'Apadana: II. Le matériel céramique, Cahiers de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Iran 7, 75–161.Google Scholar
Koechlin, R., 1928. Les céramiques musulmanes de Suse au Musée du Louvre, Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique de Perse XIX, Leroux, Paris.Google Scholar
Kuhnel, E., 1934. Die 'Abbasidischen Lusterfayencen, Ars Islamica 1, 149–59.Google Scholar
Lane, A., 1939. Glazed relief ware of the ninth century A.D., Ars Islamica 6, 56–65.Google Scholar
Lane, A., 1947. Early Islamic Pottery, Faber and Faber, London.Google Scholar
Le Strange, G., 1905. Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge UP, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Madelung, W., 1965. The assumption of the title Shahanshah by the Buyids and “The Reign of the Daylam” (Dawlat al-Daylam), Journal of Near Eastern Studies 28, 84–108.Google Scholar
Marçais, I. G., 1928. Les faiences à reflets métalliques de la grande mosquée de Kairawan, Paris.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., 1991. Petrography of Islamic ceramics. In Middleton, A. and Freestone, I. C. (eds.), Recent Developments in Ceramic Petrology, British Museum Occasional Paper No. 81, London, 185–209.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., 1994. Islamic Glazed Pottery 700–1250, D. Phil, thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., 1995a. New looks at old pots: results of recent multidisciplinary studies of pottery from the Islamic world, Muqarnas 12, 1–10.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., 1995b. Criteria for the petrographic characterization of stonepaste ceramics, Archaeometry 37, 307–22.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., forthcoming a. Medieval lustre-painted and associated wares from Egypt: typology in a multidisciplinary study.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., forthcoming b. Medieval lustre-painted and associated wares from Syria: typology in a multidisciplinary study, to be submitted to Levant.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., forthcoming c. Medieval lustre-painted and associated wares from Iran: typology in a multidisciplinary study, to be submitted to Iran.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., Bailey, G., and Golombek, L., in press, Stylistic groups and their production centres. In Golombek, L., Mason, R. B. and Bailey, G., Tamerlane's Tableware: A New Approach to the Chinoiserie Ceramics of Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Iran, Royal Ontario Museum.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Keall, E. J., 1990, Petrography of Islamic pottery from Fustat, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 27, 165–84.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Keall, E. J., 1991, The 'Abbasid glazed wares of Siraf and the Basra connection: petrographic analysis, Iran 29, 51–66.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Keall, E. J., in press, Between Basra and Samarra: petrographic analysis of Tall Aswad pottery. In Miglus, P. A. et al., Ar-Raqqa I. Die Keramik vom Tall Aswad, Deutschen Archäologischen Institut, Damaskus.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Tite, M. S., 1994a, The beginnings of Islamic stonepaste technology, Archaeometry 36, 77–91.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Tite, M. S., 1994b, Islamic pottery: a tale of men and migrations, Museum International 46, 33–7.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Tite, M. S., forthcoming a. The beginnings of tin-opacification of pottery glazes, to be submitted to Archaeometry.Google Scholar
Mason, R. B., and Tite, M. S., forthcoming b. Alkali ceramic glazes in the Islamic world, to be submitted to Archaeometry.Google Scholar
Matson, F. R., 1965. Ceramic ecology: an approach to the study of early cultures of the Near East. In Matson, F. R. (ed.), Ceramics and Man, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 41, 277–87.Google Scholar
Miller, D., 1985. Artefacts as Categories: A Study of Ceramic Variability in Central India, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Morgan, D., 1988. Medieval Persia: 1040–1797, Longman, London.Google Scholar
al-Naqib, K. M., 1967. Geology of the Arabian Peninsula: Southwestern Iraq, Geological Survey Professional Paper 560-G, Washington.Google Scholar
Northedge, A., Bamber, A., and Roaf, M., 1988, Excavations at Ana, Iraq Archaeological Reports 1, British School of Archaeology in Iraq.Google Scholar
Northedge, A., and Kennet, D., 1994. The Samarra Horizon. In Grube, E. J., Cobalt and Lustre: The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, Nour Foundation, Oxford, 21–35.Google Scholar
Peacock, D. P. S., 1982. Pottery in the Roman World: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach, Longman, London.Google Scholar
Philip, G., 1968. Mineralogy of recent sediments of Tigris and Euphrates rivers and some of the older detrital deposits, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 38, 35–44.Google Scholar
Philon, H., 1980. Early Islamic Ceramics: Ninth to Late Twelfth Centuries, Benaki Museum Athens Catalogue of Islamic Art I, Islamic Art Publications, S.A.Google Scholar
Pope, A. U., 1938, A Survey of Persian Art V, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rice, P. R., 1984. Change and conservatism in pottery-producing systems. In van der Leeuw, S. E. and Pritchard, A. C. (eds.), The Many Dimensions of Pottery, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Rice, P. R., 1987. Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Roaf, M., 1990. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Equinox, Oxford.Google Scholar
Rogers, J. M., 1984, Mediaeval pottery at Apamaea in the 1976 and 1977 seasons. In Balty, J. (ed.) Apamée de Syrie: Bilan des recherches archéologiques 1973–1979, Centre Belge de Recherches Archéologiques à Apamée de Syrie, Bruxelles, 261–85.Google Scholar
Sarre, F., 1923. Die Keramik von Samarra, Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra II, Verlag von Dietrich Reimer, Berlin.Google Scholar
Schmidt, E. F., 1939. The Treasury of Persepolis and Other Discoveries in the Homeland of the Achaemenians, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Talbot Rice, D., 1934. The Oxford excavations at Hira, Ars Islamica 1, 51–73.Google Scholar
Tamari, V., 1984, Ninth-Tenth Century White Mesopotamian Ceramic Ware with Blue Decoration, unpublished M.Phil thesis, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Tampoe, M., 1989. Maritime Trade between China and the West: An Archaeological Study of the Ceramics from Siraf (Persian Gulf), 8th to 15th Centuries A.D., British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.Google Scholar
Tite, M. S., 1988. Inter-relationship between Chinese and Islamic ceramics from 9th to 16th century A.D., Proceedings of the 26th International Archaeometry Symposium: Toronto 1988, 30–4.Google Scholar
Waagé, F. O., 1948. The glazed pottery. In Waagé, F. O. (ed.), Antioch-on-the-Orontes IV/1. Ceramics and Islamic Coins, Princeton, London and The Hague, 79–108, Figs. 42–96 and Pls. XIV–XVIII.Google Scholar
Whitcomb, D. S., 1988. A Fatimid residence at Aqaba, Jordan, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 32, 207–24.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D., 1979. Islamic glazed pottery in Iraq and the Persian Gulf: the ninth and tenth centuries, Annali del'Istituto Orientale di Napoli 39, 45–61.Google Scholar
Whitelaw, G., 1994. KwaGandaganda: settlement patterns in the Natal Early Iron Age, Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 6, 1–64.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, C. K., 1973. Nishapur: Pottery of the Early Islamic Period, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.Google Scholar
Yusuf, Abd al-Rauf Ali, 1958. Khazzafun min al-asr al-Fatimi wa asalibuhum al-Mubakkir, Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University 20/2, 173–279.Google Scholar
Changyuan, Zhou 1985. Ancient Persian glazed earthenwares unearthed in Yangzhou (Yangzhou chatu sudai Bosi youtaogi), Kaogu (Archaeology) 2, 152–4.Google Scholar