Islamic pottery

Harran Excavation Works in 2018
Excavations were carried out in 2018 at the Perfume Shop, Palace Bath and Mound by the Harran archeology excavation team. Also restoration and conservation works were carried out in Bazaar Bath. In this article, information is given about the workshop and findings. The warm room (tepidarium), hot water store and furnace  of the Saray Bath, which was excavated in Harran İçkale, and also, another excavations were on the mound. are introduced.

ÖZET
Harran arkeoloji kazı ekibi tarafından 2018 yılında Çarşı Hamamı'nda restorasyon ve konservasyon çalışmaları ile Miskçi Dükkanı, Saray Hamam ve Höyük’de kazı çalışmaları yapıldı. Bu makalede, Miskçi Dükkanı'nın işlik ve deposundaki buluntular  hakkında bilgi verilmektedir. Harran İçkale'de kazısı yapılan Saray Hamamı'nın ılıklık, sıcak su deposu ve külhanı ile Höyük’de yapılan çalışmalar tanıtılmaktadır.

Registration link: https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/ZXZZjyXo/islamic-ceramics-online-conference-july-2021 
Join international experts in ceramics from the Islamic world as they present new research on themes ranging from archaeological finds to contemporary practice.

In the course of the last thirty years, research on the Islamic pottery of the Iberian peninsula has expanded spectacularly, both quantitatively and qualitatively, spurred on as much by the renewal of historiographical issues as by the multiplication of excavations, both rescue and research. For the early Middle Ages the results have brought new elements for the solution of complex historical problems (processes of acculturation, development of exchange networks, relationship between urban and rural, transfer of technologies and the control of markets, State propaganda, etc.). Is such a real revolution in our knowledge possible in the ceramology of the medieval Maghreb? What can we expect to learn from the methodological experience of al-Andalus ? And what information can we hope to gain from the research taking in place in the Maghreb itself in order to form a more global picture of the two shores of the Western Mediterranean?.

One of the most important groups of clay pottery in the Middle Islamic period which have been made with new techniques painting on glaze is well-known luster ware pottery. According to the archeological studies have shown that the potteries have been produced on the distance to the Early to Late Islamic period, but the heyday of these pottery is 12 – 14AD. About the Middle Islamic of luster ware in Iran has published many studies, but done mostly by Western scholars. While in recent years in parts of Iran, archaeological excavations carried out in which the evidence was obtained that luster ware pottery production during the centuries. Unfortunately, due to the limit publisher our data from this excavation is very slight, although these low evidence are also of particular importance. Thus the aim of this study is based on this fact which we review the history of luster ware with special emphasis on medieval Islamic of Iran, to discuss its pottery production centers.

En este artículo se presentaron por primera vez piezas con este tipo de técnica y decoración, fechadas en época almohade (1195-1212), y de la cual no se tenía constancia para esta época. Encontradas en claros contextos almohades meseteños, este tipo de decoración (polícroma en blanco, verde y negro), salvo escasos fragmentos encontrados posteriormente en el área cordobesa y del bajo Guadiana portugués (Mértola), parece limitarse al valle medio del Guadiana meseteño, precisamente, en el área más en vanguardia del imperio almohade contra Castilla.
Por otro lado, la constatación de este tipo de decoración, a caballo de los siglos XII y XIII, viene a llenar el gran e inexplicable hueco, que hasta la publicación de este artículo existía, entre la producción de época omeya en "verde y manganeso" de los siglos X y XI  y la producción valenciana (Paterna y Manises) y aragonesa (Teruel) de los siglos XIII y XV, también e"en verde y manganeso".

Entre los meses de marzo y junio de 2017 se descubrió y excavó de urgencia en el marco de una actuación de arqueología urbana una pequeña parte del yacimiento bajomedieval del Durdur, ubicado junto al río Tarafa, en el casco antiguo de Aspe (Alicante).
La actuación exhumó parte de una vivienda de grandes dimensiones abierta a un patio, con varias estancias originalmente levantadas con muros de tapial y mampostería; adosado a este espacio doméstico se pudo documentar la presencia de un alfar mudéjar con dos hornos de parrilla, y junto a ellos varios pequeños hornillos dispuestos en batería que pudieron destinarse a la elaboración de pigmentos metálicos.
El amplio y variado repertorio de material cerámico que ha proporcionado el yacimiento apunta a un contexto cronológico tardomedieval que se iniciaría en el segundo tercio del siglo XV y se prolongaría hasta finales del siglo XVI o principios del XVII, cuando tras la expulsión de los moriscos el lugar quedaría despoblado.
La presencia junto a los hornos de balsas para la decantación de arcilla, atifles, sellos, placas para el transporte de piezas o restos de fritas, confirma la existencia de un centro productor de obra aspra, cerámica vidriada y loza decorada en una comarca y un periodo para los que no existen alfares localizados hasta el momento.

A small part of the Durdur late medieval site, which was located next to the Tarafa river in the old town of Aspe (Alicante), was discovered and excavated as part of an urban archaeology project from March to June  in 2017.
Part of a large house, which was open to a courtyard, with several rooms originally built with rammed earth and masonry walls, was exhumed during the excavation. The existence of a Mudejar pottery workshop with two kilns could be documented as being attached to this domestic space, and next to them there were several perpendicularly disposed small kilns, which could have been used for making metallic pigments.
The wide and varied collection of pottery found during the archaeological excavation of the site dated back to a late medieval chronological context that began in the second third of the 15th century and lasted until the end of the 16th or early 17th centuries, when the place would have been depopulated after the expulsion of the Moriscos.
The presence of pools for the decantation of clay, tripods, seals, plates for the transport of pieces, or remains of frits next to the kilns, confirms the existence of a workshop where obra aspra pottery, glaze earthenware and majolica were produced in this specific region in a period of time during which pottery workshops had not been discovered until this moment.

O extenso programa de trabalhos arqueológicos decorrente do projecto de ampliação e remodelação do Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro permitiu exumar, no espaço do antigo fórum da cidade romana de Aeminium e sua envolvente, uma significativa colecção de material cerâmico alto-medieval, ancorada entre os séculos IX e XI.
O espólio em questão provém de contextos associados a níveis de aterro e de colmatação de estruturas em negativo que testemunham a espectável persistência ocupacional e transformação deste espaço nevrálgico em época medieval.
Atendendo ao estádio preliminar do estudo que se encontra em desenvolvimento, apresentam-se alguns destes contextos esboçando, em traços gerais, as principais linhas formais e orientações estéticas reveladas nos respectivos lotes cerâmicos. Neste sentido, pretende-se conferir especial realce à presença e convivência de uma diversidade de soluções e influências que marcam a cultura material alto-medieval em Coimbra, localizada, por vários séculos, numa posição de charneira entre o “estandarte” cristão setentrional e o “crescente” meridional.

کتاب در جستجوی سفال ایران، سفرنامه‌ای علمی و خواندنی درباره‌‌ی هنر سفالگری ایران با قدمتی ده هزارساله است، که نتیجه‌ی مطالعات و تحقیقات میدانی، پژوهشگر برجسته ژاپنی، پروفسور میتسوکنی یوشیدا بوده است.
نویسنده کتاب به‌عنوان یک باستان‌شناس، مدیر دانشگاه  و موزه‌ی کیوتو، در سال ۱۹۵۶م. نخستین سفر  پژوهشی خود را به ایران انجام داد و از آن پس شیفته‌ی  فرهنگ و هنر ، به‌ویژه تاریخ هنر سفال و سفال‌سازی ایرانی شد.
از آن زمان و تا سال ۱۹۶۴م.، چندین بار دیگر به ایران سفر کرد و به اقصی نقاط ایران رفت تا با پیشینه این هنر بیشتر آشنا شود و در نهایت مجموعه‌ی اطلاعات و دستاوردهای علمی و پژوهشی خود را در قالب کتاب حاضر منتشر کرد.
این کتاب یکی از منابع ارزشمند وکمتر شناخته شده درباره‌ی تاریخچه‌ و سبک‌شناسی سفال ایران (از دوران باستان تا روزگار معاصر) است که برای نخستین‌بار به فارسی ترجمه و در ایران منتشر می‌گردد.

"The fight between Umayyads and Fatimids took place mainly in the Magrib al-Aqsa. Mind- ful that its control was vital for the security of al- Andalus, al-Nasir conquest in 391 H (931) Ceuta, the door that opens and closes the way to al-An- dalus. From that moment, the port will become a strategically point for the Umayyad State. The importance of the city is reflected in the chronicles of the moment that gather the different informa- tion about the city. Until now, they were the fun- damental source on which to raise the history of this period.
For some years the developed archaeological investigation, has been allowing to obtain great amount of data, most unpublished, that largely it decisively contributes to extend our knowledge over the city.
This paper shows all these new information and tries to more accurately reconstruction that this decisive period for the history of the port of the Straits."

"In September 2005 the IAA Reports series introduced a new book, POTTERY OF THE CRUSADER, AYYUBID, AND MAMLUK PERIODS IN ISRAEL. This book, designed as an easy-to-use catalogue, is a first attempt to collect and distinguish pottery of these periods.In the modern state of Israel a considerable number of sites with strata from the Crusader, Ayyubid, and Mamluk periods have been excavated throughout the last years. These sites yielded a wealth of ceramic mate­rial that is thus far not well known. POTTERY OF THE CRUSADER, AYYUBID, AND MAMLUK PERIODS IN ISRAEL was written in order to fill this lacuna. It presents an up-to-date survey of pottery from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries excavated in Israel through 2004. It is organized as a wide-ranging typology that includes the necessary scientific apparatus, 53 pottery figures illustrating the various types, and 34 color plates that vividly demonstrate the colors of the clay, glazes and decorations.
The catalogue is divided into three part: Part I presents the glazed table wares, comprised largely of glazed bowls, and less of closed glazed vessels. There is a wide range of locally produced wares, as well as wares imported from Egypt, Syria, Byzantium, Italy, Spain, and North Africa, and China. Part II deals with simple, mostly unglazed, domestic and industrial wares, as well as glazed cooking wares. Part III discusses the common oil lamps. The initial aim of the book is to assist the field archae­ologist in pottery sorting, as well as to help the interested ceramic specialists, students and readers in identifying and dating the various types.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Amir Drori (1937-2005), who was the founder and first director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (1989-2000)."

The preparation of two memorial tiles in the early Safavid era for a tiled minbar in the Jami’ Mosque in Kuhpayeh, a small town near Isfahan, has raised questions and leads into ambiguities. One of these tiles is a lustre ceramic plaque which was produced in Muharram 935/September in 1528 in Kashan; the other is a blue-and-white tile that was produced eight months later in Ramadan in 1528in Qomsheh. The content of the first tile depicts radical (Ghulat) Shiism, and the second indicates a moderate Islamic tendency about Ali ibn Abi Talib and the Prophet’s Houshold. This article through an introduction of architectural and artistic elements of the Jami’ Mosque of Kuhpayeh, based on a field study, seeks to analyze the content of the tiles installed in the minbar and mihrab of the mosque. Based on the cultural and religious setting of central Iran during the reign of Shah Tahmasb, this paper proposes a new theory about the reason for the preparation of two memorial tiles for a single minbar. The findings show that the main reason for ordering the second tile is the customer’s anxiety about the phrase “Hu al-A’li al-a’la” --used for Imam Ali and some leaders of the Hurufi movement-- at the top of Kashan’s lustre tile Since it was considered an extremist and illegitimate slogan. Therefore, in Kuhpayeh, which was one of the Nuqtavi centers, and some of its elders such as Abu al-Qasim Amri were blinded by this accusation, the patron of the minbar, Haj Iskandar, ordered another tile with a moderate content. Also, these two tiles reveal the industrial and artistic relations of several cities such as Kashan, Qomsheh, and Kuhpayeh in the center of Iran that are influenced by Shiite beliefs of that time.

This text comes from a reflection in the context of a fruitful discussion about the history and archeology of medieval Muslim West, sponsored by the Foundation des Treilles with the intention of making a critical balance of the research and discoveries produced in the last twenty years in al-Andalus, Maghreb and Sicily. According to this philosophy, my contribution aims to show the progress in material characterization early al-Andalus and its historical implications. Is addressed in two parts. The first is devoted to analyzing the role of archeology in the construction of historiographical models on early al-Andalus, are valued progress and debates that dominate the historical and archaeological research about the formation of al-Andalus during the last decades, and that led, after a great dynamismto greater introspection. The second part discusses future research strategies that currently arise from specific case studies. It aims to discuss the sense and the meaning of historical and archaeological research about al-Andalus, in the context of a medieval archeology increasingly "Europeanizing" and feudal.

Islands and Coastal spaces in the Byzantine and Islamic Mediterranean from Justinian to the Fatimids (6th - 11th c. CE)

Abstract submission deadline: 1 April 2022
Abstracts of maximum 300 words (with authors names, affiliations and contacts) must be sent by email to the colloquium organizers: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Please to follow the AIA guidelines (https://www.archaeological.org/programs/professionals/annual-meeting/call-for-papers/procedures/).

This colloquium aims to provide a clearer comparative view of the social, cultural, and economic transformations of coastal and insular spaces in Byzantine and Islamic Mediterranean (6th  – 12th  centuries CE). These regions were affected by the ebbs and flows of Mediterranean politics, trade, and cultural engagements in the longue durée between Byzantine rule and the Fatimids. This colloquium, therefore, aims to tip the scholarly imbalance and examine coastal and insular seascapes and landscapes as important actors in the creation of dynamic cross-cultural interactions and politically creative moments along a permeable frontier. Recognizing that landscapes and seascapes alike include both natural and anthropogenic features of land and water areas, this project will examine how geophysical spaces were incorporated and integrated through human intervention (such as settlement), together with all aspects of its interplay with the natural environment, elucidating changes related to the social construction of landscapes and seascapes in the Mediterranean and their diachronic transformations. In particular, this colloquium will be focused on the reformation of urban and rural settlement patterns, the distribution and consumption patterns of goods, and the circulation of people and ideas. These transitions will be compared to the historical trajectories experienced by the main insular spaces like Sicily, Malta, Cyprus, Crete but also in archipelagos (such as Aegean and Balearic Islands) and coastal regions (from the West to the East of the Mediterranean), which drew their character from their positions at the interface among different political structures, economic networks, and religious and cultural systems.

Topics:

– Patterns of change in urban and rural settlement patterns between the coasts and the inland landscapes
– Connectivity and mobility of people and goods across the Byzantium and the Islam
– Climate change and human-environment interaction

This chapter discusses the main pottery assemblages of the Islamic period collected during excavations at the Givati Parking Lot in Jerusalem, not far from the Dung Gate and below the monumental Umayyad complex to the south of the Temple Mount.

2022, en C. Fernández-Ochoa; C. Heras Martínez; A. Morillo Cerdán; M. Zarzalejos Prieto; C. Fernández Ibáñez y Mª. R. Pina Burón (Ed. Científica), De la costa al interior. Las cerámicas de importación en Hispania. SECAH & MAR. Madrid 2022. ISBN: 978-84-451-3957-8. Tomo II: pp. 705-718

Abstract
Located in the Nusaybin district of Mardin, the Mor Yakup Church is one of the earliest known churches in
the region. The church was built in the first half of the 4th century AD. The first excavations in the building
started in 2000 and continued at regular intervals until 2017. In this study, a total of 68 pieces of ceramics
dating from the Hellenistic Period to the Abbasid Period were evaluated. The aim of the study is to examine
the ceramics belonging to the mentioned periods of the region chronologically and typologically, to introduce
them to the scientific world and to reveal their relations with the surrounding cultures.
Keywords: Mardin, Nusaybin, Mor Yakup Church, Ceramic

This paper presents an overview of ceramics, economy, and trade in North Africa from the Vandal to the early Arab periods (up to the early eleventh century), tackling both the transition from the Byzantine to Arab occupation and the first centuries of Arab rule. Whereas the excavations at Bir Ftouha (Carthage) and at Ṣabra al Mansūriyya provide fairly solid insight into the late tenth and eleventh centuries, and the fifth to seventh centuries have considerable archaeological documentation with respect to North Africa and its economic connections with the rest of the Mediterranean and beyond, it was clear from the outset that bridging the eighth to mid-tenth centuries is problematic. This essay will demonstrate that part of the difficulty is a lack of coherent excavation strategies and an overly synthetic, selective publication of the ceramics and it will outline some of the themes that would be fruitful to investigate in the future.
Continuities and discontinuities within Africa-Ifrīqiya of ceramic production, diet, cuisine, and culinary practices are explored here, the last illustrated by the distinctive ceramics repertoires necessary for the processing and cooking of food; so are possible links between contemporary Arab cultures manifest in Ifrīqiya, al-Andalus, and Sicily, across the water. It is with the mapping of culinary culture and its accessories that I believe we shall best be able to understand the Arab (and Berber) communities of North Africa, with respect to their origins, development, and interaction across the Maghreb and
the Islamic West.

The adoption of individual Chinese motifs into the Persian artistic language began in the Ilkhanid period (1256–1353) and by the Timurid period (circa 1370–1507), khatā’ī (Pers. ‘from Cathay’), the term with which the Chinese style came to be described in the sources, was fully integrated into the artistic repertoire. The first production of white porcelain decorated with cobalt-painted designs– qinghua (‘blue-decorated wares’) – took place in the first half of the 14th century at the kilns of Jingdezhen in northern Jianxi province, largely for export to Middle Eastern markets. The impact of these precious imported pieces was immediate and ceramic manufacturing workshops in Damascus, Cairo and Samarqand began to produce wares that closely imitated the palette, shapes and motifs of Chinese models from both the Yuan (1271–1368) and early Ming (1368–1435) periods.
A similar process of imitation and assimilation can be seen in Ottoman ceramics and this  article examines the derivation and evolution of hatayi (Turk. ‘from Cathay’) elements in the early blue-and-white styles produced in Istanbul and Iznik.

Resumen: se presenta una selección de piezas y fragmentos cerámicos islámicos de los períodos omeya y almohade (siglos. IX al XIII) que, por sus características formales, decorativas o iconográficas, aportan algunas novedades en esta materia en Calatrava la Vieja y Alarcos, dos yacimientos medievales de la Meseta.

Abstract: The paper presents a selection of Islamic ceramic pieces and fragments from the Umayyad and Almohad periods (9th-13th centuries). Their formal, decorative and iconographic characteristics provide new elements for discussion in these two medieval sites on the Spanish meseta.

Résumé: Cette étude présente une sélection de pièces et de fragments céramiques islamiques des périodes omeyyade et almohade (XIe au XIIIe siècles) dont les formes, décorations et iconographies apportent certaines nouveautés propres à ces deux gisements médiévaux de la Meseta.

In 1969–70, a single Tang dynasty blue-spotted Gongyi sherd was found at Siraf, Iran, the main trading port on the Persian Gulf in the early Islamic period. This is the only known example of Chinese blue-and-white ware, whether low- or high-fired, found in the Middle East from such an early date. The sherd provides direct archaeological evidence for the Indian Ocean trade between China and the Middle East in the ninth century AD. The body paste, clear glaze and blue glaze or pigment were analyzed by thin-section petrography, scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDX) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The technological analysis reveals the different steps of the chaîne opératoire: clay mixing, slip and glaze
application, and decoration with the cobalt blue glaze before high-temperature firing. These steps are characteristic of Tang stoneware production at Gongyi in Henan province, China.
The use of cobalt blue pigment as part of a simple spotted decoration scheme on the Gongyi sherd, and its find context within the Middle East, provides evidence for the complex interplay and influence occurring between Chinese and Middle East ceramic industries at this time.
Closely comparable examples of contemporary low-fired earthenware ceramics with cobalt blue decoration on a white tin glaze manufactured within the Middle East also occur within the same assemblage from Siraf.