Islamic ceramics

This is a French version an overview of the history of Armenian Kütahya ceramics and its continuation after the genocide in Jerusalem.  Kütahya was perhaps the most important center of Armenian ceramic production in post-Medieval times.  Many of the thousands of surviving early eighteenth-century pieces, including a special order for some 10,000 tiles destined originally for the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, now in the Armenian Monastery of St. James, are inscribed in Armenian.  In the early twentieth century, many of these objects, including two dated and signed examples of the early sixteen century in blue and white, the oldest dated ceramics executed within the Ottoman Empire, were thought to be the work of Turkish ceramists patronized by well to do Armenian patrons, despite the quite clear inscriptions by the Armenian craftsmen themselves.  The variety and popularity of this Kütahya ware has had renewed interest in both Turkey and abroad.  Les céramiques produites à Kütahya 1 , ville située à environ 200 kilomètres au sud-est de Constantinople/Istanbul, furent l'oeuvre presque exclusive de potiers arméniens, du XVI e au XX e siècle. La communauté arménienne y est présente dès le XIII e siècle et une église arménienne est attestée en 1391 2. Considérées longtemps comme une branche mineure des céramiques ottomanes, ce n'est qu'avec la publication de l'immense étude de John Carswell qu'elles furent définitivement incorporées à la longue histoire de l'art arménien 3 .

La technique du zallīğ ou marqueterie de céramique, de longue tradition dans l'architecture tunisienne et réalisée par les ateliers de la ville de Tunis jusqu'à la fin du XVII e siècle, déploie et véhicule le langage hispanomaghrébin qui survivra dans les arts décoratifs tunisiens jusqu'au XIX e siècle. Le zallīğ s'avère donc un élément de continuité et les brillants épigones méritent une analyse détaillée en tant que tel.

The catalogue of an exhibition of Islamic art to coincide with the reopening of the Department of Islamic Art in the Louvre Museum in September 2012. The exhibition, organized by Laure Soustiel, is kindly hosted by the Galerie Antoine Laurentin, Paris, facing the Louvre. It takes place during the "XXVIth Biennale des Antiquaires".

Islamische Keramik hat ihren festen Platz in allen Museen mit Sammlungen Islamischer Kunst. Sie übt, nicht zuletzt seit den Museumsgründungen in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, große Faszination auf Sammler und Museumskuratoren gleichermaßen aus. Doch wie gelangte sie in die Museen und nach welchen Kriterien wurde sie gesammelt? Deniz Erduman-Çalış untersucht fünf Museen in Deutschland in Hinblick auf Sammlung, Erforschung und Präsentation Islamischer Keramik. Dabei gelingt es der Autorin, spannende Einzelaspekte Islamischer Keramik und deren Forschungsgeschichte zu beleuchten. Im Zentrum der Untersuchung steht die Frage, ob die in den Museumssammlungen als "Islamische Keramik" zusammengetragenen Objekte tatsächlich einen Korpus der ab dem 7. Jahrhundert in der islamisch geprägten Welt produzierten Keramiken widerspiegeln. Oder ob es - bestimmten Moden, Interessen oder Ideologien folgend - eher einer subjektiven Auswahl zu verdanken ist, wie sich die Sammlungen heute zusammenstellen. Die Untersuchung zeigt auf interessante Weise die prägende Rolle der Kunsthändler für die Erwerbung von Islamischer Keramik in deutschen Museen.

Kütahya was perhaps the most important center of Armenian ceramic production in post-Medieval times.  Many of the thousands of surviving early eighteenth-century pieces, including a special order for some 10,000 tiles destined originally for the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, now in the Armenian Monastery of St. James, are inscribed in Armenian.  In the early twentieth century, many of these objects, including two dated and signed examples of the early sixteen century in blue and white, the oldest dated ceramics executed within the Ottoman Empire, were thought to be the work of Turkish ceramists patronized by well to do Armenian patrons, despite the quite clear inscriptions by the Armenian craftsmen themselves.  The variety and popularity of this Kütahya ware has had renewed interest in both Turkey and abroad.  The article is an overview o the history of Armenian Kütahya ceramics and its continuation after the genocide in Jerusalem.

کتاب هنر ایران نوشته رابرت مرداک اسمیت (۱۸۳۵-۱۹۰۰م) یکی از نخستین کتاب‌های تاریخ هنر ایران است که در عهد ناصری و در سال ۱۸۷۶م (۱۲۵۴ش) در لندن منتشر شده است. مرداک اسمیت رئیس اداره تلگراف ایران (۱۸۶۴-۱۸۸۸م) سرلشکر باستان شناس و دیپلمات اسکاتلندی یکی از مهمترین گردآورندگان آثار هنر ایران در موزه‌های انگلستان (عصر ویکتوریا) بوده است. این کتاب سندی مهم از تاریخ هنر ایران است که علاوه بر متن اصلی کتاب شامل آلبومی از تصاویر رنگی از آثار هنر ایران در موزه ویکتوریا و آلبرت لندن و دو مقاله از نویسندگان برجسته جنیفر اسکرس و ایزابل گدوین درباره اهمیت کار مرداک اسمیت و کتاب حاضر است.

Between ca. 1830 and 1950 ceramics manufacturers in Europe, primarily Russia and England and secondarily France and Austria, exported large quantities of earthen-wares and porcelain to Iran. Decorations and shapes often were adapted to the Iranian market, giving names and dates in Persian and some featuring lines from proverbs. Based on scarce contemporary sources such as eyewitness accounts of travelers, as well as Iranian records, market surveys, diplomatic reports, customs data, and other sources, this article describes how the trade between Europe and Iran developed, its conditions and organization, volume, customer preferences, and competition with other countries. Some of the most important manufacturers producing for the Iranian market are discussed, along with specific examples.

Armenian potters almost exclusively crafted the ceramics produced in the western Anatolian city of Kutahia (Kutahya), about 225 miles (360 kilometers) southeast of Constantinople/Istanbul, from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. Armenians may have been active even earlier in this locality where various kinds of ceramics were manufactured from prehistoric times, as has been verified from twentieth-century excavations, because an Armenian colony existed there from the thirteenth century and an Armenian church from at least the year 1391.

At Khirbat Din‘ila, pottery from the Crusader, Mamluk and perhaps, early Ottoman periods was uncovered. The majority of the assemblage dates to the Mamluk period (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries CE). This is the first Mamluk pottery assemblage in the southwestern Levant in general and Galilee in particular to be comprehensively studied, utilizing quantitative analysis and petrographic analyses. Unglazed wares are very common, comprising vessels used mainly for storing, transferring, preparing and serving food, and include handmade, wheel-made and mold-made wares. A large range of wheel-made glazed types were also found, consisting of cooking wares, table wares and oil lamps. A few imported glazed wares include Soft Paste wares from Syria and some glazed wares from Italy.

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.

A large collection of excavated material from the port-city of Siraf in Iran is held in the British Museum, London. The material was collected between 1966 and 1973 but only recently catalogued. Among some seventeen thousand pieces of stone, metal, glass and ceramic from the Siraf site, including many Chinese ceramic sherds of the Tang dynasty to the Qing dynasty, is a single shard of Chinese Tang high-fired white stoneware with cobalt-blue decoration. This early blue and white ware is of the ‘blue spotted’ type that can be related to both low-fired and high-fired examples of the Tang dynasty excavated from Gongyi (formerly Gongxian) Henan, China in 2004. The shard can also be compared to a complete high-fired Tang stoneware jar in the University of Hong Kong Museum that is also sparsely decorated with cobalt-blue spots and dashes on a white ground. So far as is known the high-fired Siraf sherd is the only example of Tang dynasty Chinese blue and white found in the Middle East and therefore of prime interest in the study of East-West trade, interactions that may have operated in the ninth century between these two ceramic traditions.

Numerous sherds of Iraqi blue and white earthenware material were also found at Siraf. Most show typical Middle Eastern palmette, floral or calligraphic cobalt-blue painting, but a few used blue spots and blue dashes and appear similar to the Tang blue and white shard itself. Siraf also yielded a number of Chinese white-glazed stoneware sherds decorated with green spots, together with Middle Eastern green-on-white glazed earthenware sherds made in a comparable style.

Middle Eastern blue and white at this time was a short-lived, though highly-prized production and probably made in Iraq from sometime in the 820s onwards, and for less than one hundred years. Surviving examples are mainly bowls of typical ninth century Chinese form. The decoration of Iraqi blue and white however is almost always of Middle Eastern style and this has led scholars to think that blue and white of this period may have been an independent Middle Eastern innovation. Until now this view has been reinforced by the lack of any Chinese Tang dynasty blue and white sherds (whether low fired or high-fired) having been found in the region – unlike the masses of green-on-white glazed Chinese wares excavated at sites such as Samarra and Siraf, and which are widely regarded as having had a strong impact on the development of Middle Eastern ceramics in the later eighth and ninth centuries.

The Chinese shard itself, and the contemporary Middle Eastern shards of ‘spotted’ blue and white found in the same context at Siraf, may mean that this view should be re-assessed, although just where the Iraqi ‘spotted blue’ shards should be placed in the overall chronology of Iraqi blue and white earthenware is still an open question.

This article considers the movement of commodities manufactured in southern Iraq
during the Sasanian and Early Islamic periods to the furthest eastern extremity of the
Old World: to the archipelago of Japan. In particular the focus is on two categories
of non-perishable finds that survive within the archaeological record: glass vessels
and turquoise blue alkaline glazed ceramic jars. We begin by providing an outline of
the definition and dating of what is a commonplace and widely distributed ceramic
product within the Middle East and western Indian Ocean area. It is then possible to
place these finds within a broader context by reviewing the evidence for the earliest
West Asian exports to Japan and what these might tell us about the mechanisms of
their transmission and circulation and the role of such imports within an East Asian
context. Specifically these include glass vessels dated to the Sasanian period followed
some time later by ceramic vessels manufactured at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate.
The continued arrival of Islamic glass into this later period is not a subject that will
be covered specifically as it does not contribute directly to the main arguments that
are developed below. Finally the finds are used to shed light on the broader debate
surrounding the development of the Indian Ocean economy and to what extent Japan
itself may have been commercially integrated within a wider commodity exchange
network.

In the first part of this article I attempted to outline the historical and technological background to the production of “Fusṭāṭ Fāṭimid sgraffito” wares (“FFS”) between the 11th and 12th centuries, trough a selection of material now kept in the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza (from the so-called “Martin Collection”) and in other important museum collections worldwide. Based on the same material, I shall discuss here the technical, morphological, and stylistic aspects of “FFS” within a plausible chronological framework. The third part of this article, still to be published, will deal with the trade of “FFS” within Egypt and across the Mediterranean, and with the impact that this distinctive production had on the Syrian and Iranian incised frit-wares of the 12th century and beyond.

The article discusses transfer printed ceramic exports from Britain to Indonesia between 1800 and 1915. Illustrated with numerous examples, the focus is on the ceramics manufacturers and the evolution in the type of decorations over time, from European, to copies of Chinese porcelain that was popular in SE Asia, to patterns that are adapted to the tastes of the Malay population.

In the first part of this article I outlined the historical and technological background to the production of “Fusṭāṭ Fāṭimid sgraffito” wares (“FFS”) between the 11th and 12th centuries, trough a selection of material now kept in the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza (from the so-called “Martin Collection”) and in other important museum collections worldwide. In the second part I discussed the technical, morphological, and stylistic aspects of “FFS” within a plausible chronological framework, based on the same material. In this third and final part, I will concentrate on the evidence for trade of “FFS” within Egypt and across the Mediterranean, and on the impact that this distinctive production had on the Syrian and Iranian incised frit-wares of the 12th century and beyond.

In the archaeological section of the interdisciplinary German-Omani fieldwork project «Transformation Processes in Oasis Settlements in Oman» several Islamic period sites were documented and vast amounts of ceramics collected. This paper presents the results of a few selected sites from the oases of Nizwā, Ibrā' and Ṭīwī.

This appendix provides new English translations and commentary on two Persian manuscripts on the manufacture of medieval ceramics. The first is the final chapter of Arāyis al-Jawāhir va Nafāyis al-Atāyib by Abu’l Qasim Kashani, dated 1301, which is the most comprehensive written account that is known on the manufacture of medieval Persian ceramics and provides rigorous descriptions of the materials used and the preparation and firing processes. The second is the fourth chapter of Jawāhir-Nāmeh-yi Nizāmī by Jowhari Nishaburi, dated 1196, which focuses on recipes for lustre decoration on ceramics and glass. Through integrating information from various ethnographic and geological sources, as well as results of recent scientific analyses of ceramics, this translation and commentary provides new insights into the manufacture of medieval Persian ceramics.

Ore samples collected from the cobalt mine of Qamsar, Kāshān, were studied using optical microscopy (OM), qualitative X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), semi-quantitative X-ray fluo-rescence spectrometry (XRF) and quantitative electron micro-probe with wavelength-dispersive spectrometry (EMP–WDS). These analytical data provide the characteristics of the Kāshān cobalt ore, which can be compared with the composition of the blue pigments and colourants applied to glass and glazes, not least those of Islamic and Chinese blue-and-white wares. Preliminary replication studies of the pigment were also conducted according to the descriptions given in the Persian and European historical texts reviewed in a previous paper. The resulting phases were examined under an optical microscope and a semi-quantitative energy-dispersive spectrometer (EDS) attached to a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The ore was shown to contain high Fe and As concentrations and negligible Zn and Ni concentrations. Cobaltite (CoAsS) and erythrite (Co 3 (AsO 4) 2 .8H 2 O) made up the two main cobalt-bearing minerals in the ore. The washing processes that were conducted based on a historical text rendered the ore more enriched with erythrite. In light of the new data on the Kāshān cobalt ore, the origins of the blue pigments used in some of the Islamic and Chinese ceramics are reconsidered.

Stonepaste (or fritware) is an artificial ceramic body, generally thought to have been produced from the eleventh/twelth century in the Islamic lands. Stonepaste production radically transformed the development of medieval Islamic ceramics and was eventually used for all high-quality pottery in central and eastern Islamic lands until the modern period. Despite the significance of stonepaste ceramics, archaeological evidence for their production is extremely rare and most propositions of provenance are based on art historical evidence alone. This paper reports evidence for stonepaste ceramic production from the medieval site of Moshkin Tepe in Central Iran, including stonepaste ceramic sherds, wasters, and a large collection of manufacturing equipment (i.e. hand mills, kiln rods, saggars, and remnants of kiln walls). Through field surface collection and laboratory analyses of the finds, this paper identifies the distinctive characteristics of Moshkin Tepe stonepaste ceramics. It also discusses the manufacturing equipment used and compares the material finds with the descriptions in the medieval Persian textual account by Abu'l Qasim Kashani on the production of stonepaste wares. The results presented here could pave the way to trace and study the manufacture of stonepaste ceramics and to compare different productions across the broader context of medieval Islamic lands.

Nastaliq Inscriptions of Tehran gathers toghether the largest
collection of photographs ever published of the astonishing
Nastaliq Inscriptions. Over a decade Kianoosh Motaghedi has travelled through this city to photograph Mosque’s, School’s, Tomb’s, House’s and buildings that carry the distinctive mark of calligrapher’s and tilemaker’s art.
Following the study of background and significance of Inscription in Islamic architecture of Iran, this book discusses the topic of Nastaliq Inscriptions of  Tehran and Rey
while relying on the famous samples and Motaghedi`s text draws on a wealth of iconographic and technical information to illuminate the history of these remarkable decorations.

with 400 colour illustrations

General overview of European ceramics made for export to the Islamic world from North Africa to Indonesia between ca. 1850 and 1950. Discussed are ceramics from The Netherlands (Maastricht), England, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Russia.

The revival of the arts during the reign of the Mamluk Sultan Qaytbay was concomitant with an architectural revival. Spurred by the need to furnish and decorate buildings in Cairo and cities in Greater Syria, many crafts re-surfaced during this period and continued even after his fall. Decorative tiles are an example of such a revival. Those made in the region had an eastern flavour and their production continued to flourish until the end of the Mamluk period in 1517.

A building of rural character was excavated at Khirbat al-Khurrumiya in the Upper Galilee, Israel. The pottery found there represents a household assemblage from a short occupation that can be dated to the eleventh century. The pottery types for this period in the southern Levant are not well known. This assemblage is important for helping to establish a typology of local wares from the Fatimid period.

Les fouilles archéologiques conduites dans le secteur urbain du Bustan Nassif à Baalbek, situé au sud de la citadelle à l’intérieure de l’enceinte
de la ville, ont livré un assemblage céramique homogène et représentatif de la nature de l’occupation du secteur. Des céramiques glaçurées utilisées
comme vaisselle de table ainsi que des pots à cuire et des jarres de stockage ou cruches à eau ont été mises au jour, témoignes d’une occupation modeste mais intensive. Une quantité moindre de céramiques à pâte siliceuse a été également recensée. L’assemblage des céramiques communes employées sur le site montre une tradition productive uniforme, bien que l’introduction d’une nouvelle pâte céramique et d’une exécution du décor moins soignée (pour les céramiques glaçurées) marque à un certain moment le corpus céramique de la ville. Le matériel attesté dans le Bustan Nassif o1re un aperçu des productions di1usées dans la région entre le XIIe et le XIVe siècles, ou plus probablement début du XVe siècle, montrant des similarités plus marquées avec les assemblages du Bilad al-Sham méridional et en particulier, avec Damas.

The cobalt mine of Qamsar, southwest of the city of Kāshān, in central Iran, has long been considered as a prime source of cobalt ore from ancient times until the early twentieth century AD. A review of the known Persian and European historical accounts describing the deposit, its cobalt ores and the technologies involved in the production of the blue pigment is presented here. The aim is to provide a comprehensive background against which to understand the traditional ore processing technologies involved in the production of the famous cobalt blue pigment.

The third reign of al-Na≠ sir Muhammad (610/1310-641/1341) is viewed by most scholars as a watershed in the history of the Mamluk Sultanate. Often described as the "Golden Age" of Mamluk art, this period is generally recognized as one of security and affluence. With the victory over the Mongols at 'Ayn Ja≠ lu≠ t in 659/1260 and the campaign against Acre in 690/1291, the borders of the Mamluk state were, for the time being, relatively secure. Al-Nasir Muhammad benefited from a lull in regular military activity to develop the infrastructure of Mamluk society. The formation of "classic" Mamluk institutions (such as the fully-developed hierarchy of amiral rank and offices, the structure of the army and the iqta≠ ' system, and official ceremonial and ideology) was one positive contribution of his Middle East Documentation Center. The University of Chicago. The following article is based on three chapters from the author's doctoral dissertation, "The Ceramic Correlates of Decline in the Mamluk Sultanate: An Analysis of Late Medieval Sgraffito Wares," University of Toronto, 1998. Research for the original dissertation was conducted in 1995 and 1996 and was funded by a Fulbright predoctoral grant (administered through the Cyprus American Archaeology Research Center), a Kress Predoctoral Fellowship in Egyptian Art and Architecture (facilitated by the American Research Center in Egypt), and the University of Toronto. Research permits to study sherds and complete vessels in museums on Cyprus and in Egypt were provided by the Cypriot Department of Antiquities and the (then) Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt. This article reflects the Egyptian portion of the comparative ceramic study. The author would like to thank Bruce Craig for his invitation to submit the manuscript to Mamluk Studies Review.

Less historical sites can be found in Islamic lands without incised through slip wares. This type due to the variety of its designs, motifs and comparative ease of the production, has been manufactured and used in the important Islamic pottery centers specially during fourth till seventh centuries of Hijri. This is why Researchers call it as “Traditional Pottery of Islamic Lands”. Researchers confess that Throughout the Islamic territory, either based on its variety the technique and Motifs and its quantity is unique in Iran. while the classifications are ineffective and are not based on scientific information so the present research tries to reconsider the method of construction and decorating this type of pottery on the one hand and the findings of the exploration of the sites and important centers for the production of pottery in Iran in other hands, suggests some classification, and comprehensive dating of this type based on ways of making this type of pottery, Studies have been conducted on this type in Iran how it can stablish a scientific manner and the interoperability for all pottery pieces and sherds in different sites. This research has been done in this field through the collecting of information in different Libraries and comparison and identification of the findings in Archaeological sites which related to this field. The research questions include: What classification can be considered for the type of Incised through slip ware (Sgraffiato) that can cover all the samples obtained from this type of pottery throughout Iran? Or in which centuries this type produced more or for how long has it been produced in Iran? The present study was conducted through collecting information via library and field studies of findings in this field. The results of this research indicate that the classification with regard to technical and decorative properties together can be the most comprehensive classification possible, and in this regard, three general decorative styles Introduced: Incised through slip with a few sub-styles, Champlevé, and combination style. Also, unlike the opinion of most researchers whom consider time of making this pottery is limited to the 4th-7th centuries A.H, now we know that this type of pottery was produced in Iran at least until the Safavid period.
Keywords: Pottery (Ceramic), Incised Through Slip (Sgraffito), Excised-Slip (Champlevé), Splashed, Lead Glaze.

Introduction
Carved decoration is undoubtedly one of the most common methods of decorating pottery at all periods around the world. However, using of slip or engobe for covering dishes and pots also has a long history. This coating, in addition to the impermeability of the surface of the pottery and covering its pores and holes, has acted as an appropriate background for decorating such as painting, polishing, burnishing, and cutting the motifs.
At the same time as the period of the proto writing (the first millennium B.C.) and the entrance of the Aryan to the Iranian plateau, due to the need for mass production and acceleration in decorating, the pottery was decorated with a carved decoration instead of painted pottery. The process of using of colored slips and carving on them continued in the historical period until the introduction of the Islamic era, the Iranian pottery industry, influenced by the cultural, religious and social new atmosphere, began to flourish. Factors such as influencing and applying the experience of artists of other nations, and the most importantly the using of the scientific potential of Muslim scholars, especially chemists, led to the progressive and gradual improvement of the quality and quantity of pottery industry in Islamic era especially in the fourth to seventh centuries AH.
During this period, works and objects of pottery were produced and presented in a variety of types. This variation was particularly clear in glazed pottery, among which type of “Incised through slip ware” which was known among the archeologists of the Islamic era as “Sgraffiato”, was one of the most widespread, most used and diverse technologies. Less historic sites in the Islamic world can be found without the pieces of Incised through slip ware (Sgraffiato).
This type of pottery was built and consumed due to its considerable diversity of design, pattern, color and comparative ease of construction, in the major fields of the pottery industry throughout the Islamic world, especially during the 4th to the 7th A.H. Therefore, researchers call it as “Traditional Pottery of Islamic Lands” so it is considered one of the most important types of pottery in the Islamic world. Researchers confess that Throughout the Islamic territory, either based on its variety the technologies and motives and its quantity is unique in Iran. Despite the rich history of this technology, during a century that has been studied with a number of studies, it has not been dealt with in a good way, and the present classifications for it have not been based on scientific principles from the outset and even all the pieces of ceramics have been obtained. Therefore, the authors have attempted to present a typology in this area with the aim of eliminating some of the shortcomings in the classification of this type of pottery in the field.
The classification is the result of studying and reviewing of the available scientific and archaeological reports of major and main historical sites inside and outside Iran, which are in the cultural domain of Iran on the one hand, and considering the way of making and decorating in this type of pottery on the other hand. The questions raised in the current research are: What classification can be considered for the type of Incised through slip ware (Sgraffiato) that can cover all the samples obtained from this type of pottery throughout Iran? Or in which centuries this type produced more or for how long has it been produced in Iran?  Data collection was done in library and field research, and the research method based on characteristics of the subject is descriptive-analytical methods.

Main Part
It has to be mentioned that the most important classification belongs to Arthur Upham Pope. He proposed three groups of Aqkand or Zanjan, Amol and Champlevé or Garus to rule the studies of this species. He laid pottery in museums and art collections which had not been obtained from scientific excavations as the foundations of each of the categories in his classification, so the origin of none of them was well defined and was provided by the dealers and traders of antique presented them in the cultural property market. The objects could only be accepted in the most optimistic aspect from Iran. Another weakness and defect of this classification was the use of heterogeneous terms for sub-collections, which sometimes referred to the region (such as Aqkand or Amol or Garus) and sometimes to technology (such as Champlevé)
Therefore, relying on the style and implementation of decorative technology and in order to organize the study of the type of “ Incised through slip ware “and based on studies and related findings in different regions of Iran, we can have three general styles with sub-sections for Incised through slip ware or sgraffiato in Iran. Style 1- The Linear Incised through slip ware with four minor groups. This is the group with 4 subsets, which is the largest and most comprehensive style in Sgraffiato: The Linear Incised through slip ware with splash glaze, plain linear incised ware, linear incised ware with monochromatic coloring and linear incised ware with colorful coloring. This style is the largest and most comprehensive Stroke style. Style 2 - Excised-slip or champlevé. Style 3 – Combination of linear incised with excised through slip.

Conclusion
the Incised through slip wares as one of the most widespread types of pottery in the Islamic world requires general categories applicable to the major production centers. Furthermore, according to the temporal and spatial distribution of this type in Iran and its significant variation across the whole country, the classification conducted must be generalizable to all the different areas. Therefore, the Incised through slip wares of Iran are classified under three general groups of “The Linear Incised through slip”, “Excised-slip or champlevé” and “combined style” each of which has a few subgroups.
From the point of view of the chronology of this type, Famous Scholars and researchers as Fehervari, Allan, Grube, Soustiel, or Schnyder they all believe that the Incised through slip ware or sgraffiato pottery and its subgroups in the Islamic lands has been extensively produced and distributed from the late third century to the seventh century AH. and it has been stopped producing at the same time as the Mongol invasion in 7th century AH. They also believe that manufacturing this type of pottery has been replaced by other types such as Lakabi or Silhouette in next centuries.
However, recent research in some areas such as Andej or Fortress of Hasan Sabah both in Alamut area of Qazvin, based on studies of Forms of dishes and thermoluminescence dating experiments, confirmed that this type was continually produced in a large-scale by at least the eleventh century A.H. and the Safavid period, that is, several centuries after the time determined for its production. Therefore, the production of the Incised through slip ware or sgraffiato ware was not stopped at the same time as the Mongol invasion to Iran, but also continued in most of the major areas in Iran. Thus, the dating of this type of pottery in the study of the Islamic pottery needs fundamental changes and revisions.

Keywords: Pottery (Ceramic)  Incised Through Slip (Sgraffito)  Excised-Slip (Champlevé)  Splashed  Lead Glaze.

The presented pottery collection comes from the excavation of a medieval Islamic cemetery discovered at the Kom el-Dikka site in Alexandria, Egypt. The described set represents only a small fraction of an assemblage consisting of ceramics imported from the world known at the time. Hafsid pottery is easily distinguished thanks to a characteristic palette of colors: brown and blue patterns painted on a creamy-white background. The decoration repertoire can be divided into the following main groups of motifs: zoomorphic, floral, geometric and pseudo-epigraphic. The archaeological evidence is insufficient to support a periodization of this collection; the suggested dating follows from a stylistic analysis of the decoration compared with dated parallels from excavations on the citadel in Tunis and the bacini (bowls) preserved in Italian cathedrals.

corrigenda

40n7: × "For Chinese Blue-and-White porcelain examples unearthed from Syria..."
→  ○ "For the local copies of Chinese Blue-and-White unearthed from Syria"




In the memory of Dr. Yoko Shindo (1960–2018)
http://www.j-orient.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/orient-e_52.pdf

Article accepted in November 2016, published in March 2017

39th Award for Young Scholars, 2017, The Society for Near Eastern
Studies in Japan
http://www.j-orient.com/prize/第39回（平成29年度）奨励賞受賞者（平成29年10月28日授/

本論文は一般社団法人日本オリエント学会に版権があり、正規の電子版はJ-STAGE上で公開されます。