09_Haddon Cermaics Mongol

7/28/2019 09_Haddon Cermaics Mongol

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Contents

Editorial note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Doris Behrens-Abouseif (SOAS, University of London)The Arts of the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria: An Introduction . . . . . . 13

Nasser Rabbat (MIT, Cambridge/MA)In Search of a Triumphant Image: the Experimental Quality of Early Mamluk Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Sophie Makariou and Carine Juvin (both: Dpartement des arts delIslam Muse du Louvre, Paris)The Louvre Kursi : Function and Meaning of Mamluk Stands . . . . . . . 37

Rachel WardMosque Lamps and Enamelled Glass: Getting the Dates Right . . . . . . 55

Roland-Pierre Gayraud (Laboratoire dArchologie Mdivale Mditrranenne (LAMM) CNRS Aix-en-Provence)Ceramics in the Mamluk Empire: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Rosalind A. Wade HaddonMongol Influences on Mamluk Ceramics in the Fourteenth Century . . . 95

Jon Thompson (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford)Late Mamluk Carpets: Some New Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Ellen Kenney (American University in Cairo)A Mamluk Monument Reconstructed: an Architectural History of theMosque and Mausoleum of Tankiz al-Nasiri in Damascus . . . . . . . . . 141


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6 Contents

Bernard OKane (American University in Cairo)James Wild and the Mosque of Bashtak, Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Julien Loiseau (Universit Montepellier 3)The City of Two Hundred Mosques: Friday Worship and its Spread inthe Monuments of Mamluk Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Iman R. Abdulfattah and Mamdouh Mohamed Sakr (The Princes School of Traditional Arts, Cairo)Glass Mosaics in a Royal Mamluk Hall: Context, Content, andInterpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Julia Gonnella (Museum fr Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zuBerlin)Inside Out: The Mamluk Throne Hall in Aleppo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

J. M. Rogers (The Nour Foundation)Court Workshops under the Bahri Mamluks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Zeren Tannd (Sabanc University, Sakp Sabanc Museum)Two Bibliophile Mamluk Emirs: Qansuh the Master of the Stables andYashbak the Secretary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Mehmed Baha Tanman (University of Istanbul)Mamluk Influences on the Architecture of the Anatolian Emirates . . . . 283

Doris Behrens-Abouseif (SOAS, University of London)Mamluk Perceptions of Foreign Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

List of the Mamluk Sultans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Map of the Mamluk Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Select Bibliography of Mamluk Art Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343


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Rosalind A. Wade Haddon

Mongol Inuences on Mamluk Ceramicsin the Fourteenth Century

The Mongols in their newly acquired territories were quick to absorb and adoptlocal styles into their artistic canon, and move craftsmen within their empire. Theceramic arts are ignored in the sources, but being made of more robust materials,and unlike glass and metalware unsuitable for recycling, a much larger body of material survives in archaeological contexts. Although the Mamluk world was notsubject to the full thrust of Mongol expansion, it did not resist Mongol influences,which are discernible in various artifacts, including ceramics.

Before examining this topic we need to define the Mamluk ceramics underconsideration and establish what the Egyptian and Syrian potters were produc-ing prior to the fourteenth century. For example, the diagnostic glazed earthen-waresgraffito ring-footed bowls and goblets with their slip-painted heraldic bla-zons and incised decoration, as discussed by Bethany Walker1 and in this volumeby Roland-Pierre Gayraud, certainly come under the umbrella of Byzantine andFrankish influence, and remain outside the scope of this paper. There is no in-dication that ceramic designs rigidly followed political changes, but it is proba-ble that new rulers introduced luxuries and motifs familiar to them which wouldhave been absorbed gradually into the decorative vocabulary. This contributiondiscusses thecomposite-bodied siliceous pastewares, frequently referred to as frit-wares or stonepaste wares in English-language publications. Syrian and Egyptianpotters were familiar with this paste and it is generally accepted that it was theFatimid craftsmen who re-established the technique in eleventh-century Fustat;a little later it was probably introduced to the Syrian workshops from where ittravelled to Iran. Arthur Lane saw this as happening in the twelfth century,2 butJames Allan and colleagues, citing the eleventh-century scholar al-Biruni, demon-strated that the technology had reached greater Iran in his lifetime.3 There is nodocumentary evidence for how the technology was transferred and diaspora the-

ories abound citing the fall of the Fatimids in the twelfth century, which againis an unacceptable theory considering al-Birunis treatise. A late twelfth-century work compiled by Nizami demonstrates that the Iranian world was fully conver-sant with this technology by this period.4 Archaeologically, it can be demonstrated


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96 Rosalind A. Wade Haddon

Figure1: Basefragment of an underglaze painted Ayyubid bowl. Islamic Ceramics Museum, Cairo.

that early siliceous paste wares existed in Egypt from the mid-eleventh century,5and it is possible that the technology was known in Syria by the latter half of theeleventh century, certainly well before the burning of Fustat in 1168.6 The earliestdated example comes from Iran for the year 575/1179, a Kashan lustre bottle inthe British Museums collection.7

Thethirteenth-centuryarchaeologicallevelsinEgyptandSyriaarenotasclearly defined as is desirable for such a study, but it is possible to indicate the type of wares that were popular. These are styled Ayyubid in publications, and are dec-orated under a transparent colourless or coloured glaze with figural, calligraphic,floral, or geometric designs. Generally speaking their shapes are either ring-footedbowls with wide flat rims, biconical bowls with straight rims, or large jars.8 Shapeis almost as important as decoration in ceramic studies, and I will demonstratethis later when describing diagnostic distinctions between Iranian and Mamluk products. Many of these pieces have underglaze iron red in their palette, in ad-dition to cobalt blue, manganese black, and occasionally turquoise (fig. 1). Red isnever found in Iranian products, except with overglaze enamelling in the poly-chromeminai (overglaze-painted) wares prior to the Mongol invasions and after

them on lajvardina (or lapis lazuli overglaze decoration in gold leaf, red, white,and black enamels usually on an opaque cobalt blue glaze, sometimes turquoiseor white glazes) examples. In Anatolia it is found on enamelled tiles of the sametechnique. Due to their grouping under the general label Ayyubid, and a lack of


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Mongol Inuences on Mamluk Ceramics in the Fourteenth Century 97

Figure 2: Underglaze-painted stemcup dated Ramadan 674/1276, Iran, V&A.

secure archaeological dating, they are arbitrarily dated pre-1250. However, a com-parable example of an Iranian stemcup in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A)collection is dated 674/1276 by an inscription encircling the outer rim, indicat-ing that this style of decoration, albeit an Iranian, less well-executed version with-out the red, continued into the late thirteenth century (fig. 2). When my currentwork on similar Syrian material from the Aleppo Citadel excavations has been fi-nalised, there should be strong evidence to agree with this later dating. What itwill not tell us though is where these polychrome Egypto-Syrian fragments withthe iron red were manufactured. In early publications they were said to have beenmade in Rusafa, just south of Raqqa in northern Syria, a name coined by the Ira-nian dealer Dikran Kelekian, who discussed them with Charles Vignier, who inturn mentioned them in a report on an exhibition of Oriental art in Paris.9 Exam-ples of this ware are known from numerous Egyptian sites and are found in mostmuseums Fustat collections. In Syria they have been found in sound archaeolog-

ical contexts, with many near complete examples from the Danish excavations atHama, now on display in the Syrian national museums at Hama and Damascus, aswell as the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen, and published in the Dan-ish report.10The Aleppo finds are fragmentary, but underglaze-red examples exist,


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especially amongst a newly-identified ware published by Julia Gonnella.11 A con-siderable number of dishes and bowls were found in a storage context, but sev-eral more pieces have come to light in stratified contexts and are currently beingprocessed. Curiously, examples from the whole group are rare on the DamascusCitadel.

When the Mamluks overcame their Ayyubid overlords around 1250, it is con-ceivable that there were no major changes in ceramic designs until they had con-solidated theirconquests in Greater Syria. Then, with the increased prosperity andstability of the early fourteenth century, there would have been a greater demandfor luxuries, which included tablewares for the merchant classes and religious in-stitutions that were mushrooming in the urban centres. While there was a well-

established industry in both Fustat and Damascus, we do know from archaeologi-cal evidence that thepottery centres on theEuphrates atRaqqaand Balis/Meskene,which became border posts and buffer zones against the Mongol threat, did not re-sume, and it is assumed that the artisans moved toDamascus. There is a possibility that Aleppo continued as a manufacturing centre too,12 and this is currently un-der investigation. We also have anomalies such as the magnificent base fragment(fig. 3) in the Keir Collection, which is part of a group of figural and geometricbowls whose decoration is much more finely executed, so these could represent

Figure 3: Possible interim style base, Syria or Egypt, Keir Collection, London.


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the early Mamluk interim period13 or they are examples from a particularly highquality earlier workshop.

In a paper given at a 1995 Mongol Art Conference in Edinburgh, Rachel Wardargued convincingly in favour of Mamluk art not being influenced by Ilkhaniddecorative themes until after the so-called Treaty of Aleppo was signed betweenthe two powers in 1323.14 At the same conference, Bernard OKane presented apaper on the Ilkhanid vizir, Taj al-DinAlishahs, mosque in Tabriz, as reported onby the Mamluk ambassador Aytamish al-Muhammadis anonymous secretary ordawadar , who was part of the 1322 embassy.15 The visual impact of this impres-sive monument, with its towering iwan and minarets, commissioned to outdo thefamous Sassanian vault at Ctesiphon, inspired Aytamish to invite the builders to

Cairo, which set the precedent for a short-lived vogue for tile mosaic.16

But, asMichael Rogers had already discussed in relation to Mamluk dependency on thearts of Iran at this time,17 there is little evidence for this vogue remaining and cit-ing the ceramic revetment on the minarets of the Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammadon the Cairo Citadel (13181335), commented we find no special resemblanceto anything executed in Persia at the time.18 Other than this physical evidencehe goes on to explain that the information comes from Maqrizi, writing a century later. A little later, Meinecke did identify thirteen fourteenth century examples of tile mosaic, indicating more Persian activity than hitherto thought.19

It is possible that it was these imported ceramic specialists that inspired theFus-tat potters to change their decorative styles, which they adapted, continuing to usetheir ownlong-established palettes, to createa fusionof MamlukMongol designs.Robert Irwin suggests that this did not happen until 1328, following Aytamishs1326 mission and the deaths of the Ilkhanid and Mamluk renegades, Timurtashand Qarasunqur, respectively, and a further exchange of embassies in 1328.20 Hesurmises that it was after this that Ilkhanid Iran became a cultural influence onthe Sultanate, and, possibly after the death of Abu Said in 1335, more artists wereattracted by Mamluk patronage.

However, there is little in the Mamluk ceramic repertoire to indicate this; spe-cific diagnostic shapes are retained, and in archaeological contexts few imports arefound. But, if the potters themselves came, one can argue that a prototype wouldnot have beennecessary, and they could have adapted to local decorative tastes andculinary usage immediately. It is easy to see that our knowledge is still limited inthis field. It is the nineteenth- and twentieth-century dealers who have taken ad- vantage of these gaps in our knowledge and attributed false provenances to certain vessels, either to achieve maximum market gain or to protect their sources from

would-be competitors. The free flowof antiquities has created a minefield for bothcollectors and academics, and it is only with the help of scientific excavations thatit is becoming possible to attempt to unravel these mysteries. In the 1990s, it wasthoughtscientific analyses could assist in this questand petrographic studies of the


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physicalmakeupofthesesiliceousbodiescouldbethesolution.Itiscertainlyhelp-ful in establishing the provenance of clay-bodiedwares. One of theprincipal advo-cates of this technique, Robert Mason, has communicated verbally that he cannotdistinguish categorically between Fustat and Damascus siliceous-bodied productsafter all.21 Marilyn Jenkins laid the foundations for this line of investigation in the1980s and distinguished three different production centres.22 Scientists still havenot ruled out the possibility of being able to distinguish between these pastes andglazes, and as non-intrusive methods become more sophisticated it may still bepossible to discern different workshops and pottery production centres.

What is beyond question is the enormous influence that Chinese ceramics hadon both Mongol and Mamluk pottery. The American excavations at Fustat illus-

trate this in the case of the monochrome green celadons, a ware popularly thoughtto detect poisons in any food contents.23 I quote here from George Scanlons sum-mary when assessing Fustat production:

No doubt the Chinese originals were on the markets of Cairo sometime after1200, and were still available in quantity after 1400, to be ousted in favor of theChinese blue-and-white. Unlike the earlier Northern Celadons, these modelswere imitated exactly and in bulk (seventy to one by our statistics). The shape,the sheen of the apple to olive-green glazes, the sculpted decorative effects of

chrysanthemums, fish, the scalloped-sgraffito linear designs deeply incised all were faithfully copied by the Cairene potter (abundant wasters prove thecapital to have been the site of manufacture) Further, the Chinese ware andits local imitation have been found throughout Egypt, from Kaum al-Dikka inAlexandria toAswan, and as far south inNubia asWadi-Halfa a most extraor-dinary dispersal pattern for an import, greater even than that of Samarra lusterwares within the Nile Valley.24

Curiously,thepictureontheDamascusCitadelissomewhatdifferent,25butAleppohas abundant supplies of both imports and imitations, which John Carswell ispreparing for publication, and examples of thegenuine product are already on dis-play in the Aleppo Museum. Similarly, in Iran celadons were enormously popular,and imitated. The individuality of thepotter or local taste could not be suppressed,however. As stated above by Scanlon, Chinese celadons frequently had mouldedmotifs applied to the interior, and two fish were a common motif, being a symbolof regeneration, harmony, and connubial bliss,26 but in the Mongol and Mamluk worldsthreeormoreofakindwasthenorm,eveninotherdecorativetechniques.27

Examples of these are an imitation so-called Sultanabad or coloured-ground re-

lief ware bowl from Hama and a non-relief ware version from Aleppo.28

Unfortu-nately, we have no indicationas to what three of a kindrepresented in this context.

Apart from Yuka Kadois brief survey of the chinoiserie influences on Mongolceramics,29 the most recentaccount on the topic in Iran is anarticle byOliverWat-


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son published in the proceedings of a conference held in Los Angeles in 2003.30Hedivided Mongol fineware ceramic production into the following categories: lustre;lajvardina ; imitation celadon; underglaze-painted wares subdivided into panelstyle, polychrome painted, and black under turquoise; Sultanabad or coloured-ground relief wares subdivided into grey wares and polychrome ones; whitewares; and monochrome glazed wares a group of large jars with moulded deco-ration, which should more correctly be styled as monochrome relief wares. It isonly the underglaze-painted, so-called Sultanabad, and lustred cobalt wares thatinfluenced or were copied by the Mamluk potters. Thelajvardina technique is un-known in theMamluk world,despite a skilled knowledge of glass enamelling, yet itwascertainlypopular in the contemporaryGoldenHorde centres; curiouslycobalt

and lustre vessels were seemingly more popular in the Mamluk centres than thoseof Mongol Iran, and can be seen as a continuation of an existing skill. These dec-orative differences are extremely useful when defining diagnostic shapes and fortracing trade patterns through the fragmentary remains of individual pieces.

Earlier I suggested that a probable influence on Mamluk ceramic designs camefrom the employment of tile specialists after the peace treaty with the Mongolssometime between 1323 and 1328. However, with regard to the panel-style cat-egory (see Gayraud fig. 14 (V&A 618.1864) for a good example of this type of decoration), there is analbarello or pharmacy jar in the Museo di Capodimontes(Naples) collection dated 717/1317,31 which could possibly refute this argument.Its Mamluk manufacture is certain, based on its shape Ilkhanid examples havea more curvaceous bottom section,32 such as the well-knownlajvardina examplein the Metropolitan Museum of Arts collection.33 The Mamluk panel style char-acteristics are these bold circles defined in cobalt blue, and white panels decoratedwith stippled black dots, palmette motifs partially outlined in blue, and prominentblack inscriptions (some legible, otherspurelydecorative) onboth closedandopenforms (see Gayraud fig. 14). Dividing the space into panels was a common prac-tice in both cultures, even before the Mongol invasions, and it is impossible to tellwho influenced whom. The Ashmolean bowl in fig. 4 is much more finely exe-cuted and copies the Chinese hemispherical-shaped lotus bowls, the exterior hasarcading imitating the lotus petals depicted in relief on the real celadon bowls. It istempting to say that the finer pieces are Ilkhanid and thecoarser ones Mamluk, us-ing Kashan lustre panel style examples as the prototypes for such a theory (fig. 5).I should add that some Kashan lustreware imports have been found at Syrian andEgyptian sites, but they are in earlier contexts. There are some later Mamluk datedunderglaze-painted panel style examples, which will be discussed with the imita-

tion Sultanabad style below.It is the geometric designs that are the most confusing and more difficult to

distinguish at first glance. Several of the bowls published in Esin Atls landmark exhibition of Mamluk art are now recognised as being Ilkhanid.34 The five- or six-


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Figure 4: An Ilkhanid panel style hemispherical bowl.

Figure 5: An Ilkhanid lustred panel-style hemispherical bowl.


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Figure 6: Mamluk underglaze-painted cobalt and black on white bowl.

Figure 7: Geometric underglaze-painted cobalt and blue on white Ilkhanid siliceous paste bowlfrom Khurasan.

pointed star was possibly talismanic, but also a convenient way of dividing up acircle. The Ilkhanid examples are thought to have been made in Khurasan (fig. 7),

andarecharacterised bycross-hatched blue bands,pseudo-epigraphy, andstippledin black on white grounds on their interiors and continuous S-bands or spirals onthe exterior. The glazes on the Mamluk pieces are less well applied to their heavierbodies and frequently have exaggerated drips. The decorative repertoire differs


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Figure 8: A diagnostic Ilkhanid T-rim bowl decorated in a typical Ilkhanid design in black under atransparent turquoise alkaline glaze.

too, with shell patterns,35 central rosettes like those in fig. 6, and a band of angularS-shapes, in this instance sandwiched between two plaited designs. The angular S-shapedbands arecharacteristicallyfound on Mamluk sgraffitogoblets andbowls.36

Vessels decorated in black under a transparent turquoise glaze had been pop-ular in both cultures prior to the Mongols, and continued to be so. When I inter- viewed archaeologists in Iran, they told me that they regarded the fine zigzag linesthat were used as fillers in both geometric and floral designs as being typically Ilkhanid. The T-rim bowl illustrated (fig. 8) is a diagnostic Iranian shape, so whenwe have a combination of the two, we are certain that it is an Ilkhanid piece. Ar-chaeologically, we have further proof of this designation, at the fortified Ilkhanidsite of Hasanlu, in north-west Iran, where the American excavators found an as-semblage of lajvardina and black under turquoise wares, with T-rim bowls in bothcategories.37The only T-rim example that I have discovered to date in the Mamluk world is an imported Kashan lustre fragment from Hama.38 Curiously, althoughthere are many fragments of rather coarser examples of turquoise and black wares

found in Mamlukcontexts, there are few if any of museum quality, which probably explains why Atl did not include any in her 1981 exhibition. There is a category of vessels decorated in turquoise and black on white under a clear transparent glazewhich is recognised as being typically Mamluk.39


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Figure 9: A diagnostic Ilkhanid T-rim bowl decorated in slip-relief or coloured ground technique,with the raised decoration in white outlined in black on a grey ground.

Ilkhanid Sultanabad, or slip-relief coloured-ground grey wares (fig. 9), proba-bly had the most influence on one category of Mamluk ceramics. Watson dividedthis type into polychrome and grey wares, based on Peter Morgans establishedterminology.40 Morgan outlines the use of Chinese symbolic motifs in this con-text the mythical phoenix (known as a simurgh in the Iranian world), the lotus,and the dragon and concludes that the most likelystimuluswas Mongol felts andChinese stonewares manufactured in the Henan and Hebei provinces.41 Morgangoes on to say that 25,056 families living in Henan were part of Hlegs appenage,or land holding originally granted to Toluids or Ilkhans in China, whose industrialincome Ghazan pursued in 1298, and as late as 1319 apparently 2,519 families liv-ing in Henan still belonged to the Ilkhans.42 Morgan suggested that some pottersamongst this group could have been moved to the Mongol capital of Qaraqorumand later to Saray Berke, and on to Sultanabad, knowing that craftsmen in otherskills had been. This is an attractive theory, and would certainly account for theaffinity between Golden Horde slip-relief wares (fig. 10) and their contempora-neous Ilkhanid products. However, it does not account for the fact that the twopowers were constantly scrapping over disputed territories,43 nor does it explainthe basic differences in kiln technology the West Asian and Mediterranean me-dieval world uniformly used up-draught kilns and the Chinese world used cross-

draught ones; surely there would have been a noticeable technological change if Chinese potters had been introduced to both centres. The Russian excavations atSarayBerke have provided abundantevidence forceramic production,44eveniftheinformation is lacking for fourteenth-century Iran. Lanes theory that many of the


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Figure 10: A typical Golden Horde rosewater bowl decorated in slip-relief floral designs, withepigraphic panels on the interior alternating with comma-like motifs.

designs were transmitted through textiles remains the most plausible.45 Morgandemonstrated this through the detail on miniatures in an early fourteenth-century copy of Rashid ad-DinsHistory of the World.46 As a general rule the Ilkhanid de-signs are much more rounded, whereas the Mamluk version has a pointed trilobedleaf which also appears in other media; for example, metalware, enamelled glass,and playing cards. Textiles were highly valued tribute gifts and would have beenostentatiouslyexhibitedinprincelyprocessions,nodoubt inspiringskilled artisansto follow fashionable trends. Note the decorative difference on the twoalbarelli infigs. 11and 12, which alsodemonstrate the diagnosticdifferences inshape betweenIlkhanid and Mamluk vessels.

Both types are decorated with references to princely pursuits with animals,hunting birds, Mongol figures on some Ilkhanid pieces, and a richly caparisonedhorse on many Mamluk ones, such as the example in figure 13. Perhaps the rid-erless horse is a reference to a prince or patron, a popular device in Ilkhanid il-luminated manuscripts, although in this case there is no sign of a groom.47 Notethe details of the princely blazon and some of the saddlery highlighted in red

this is another distinctive feature of Mamluk relief wares that does not occur inthe non-relief version, which is restricted to cobalt blue and black in fourteenth-century examples. There is a group of dated fragments (figs. 14, 15) with the yearsforty-four and forty-five written in a cursive Arabic48 the seven hundred is


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Figure 11: The polychrome slip-relief Ilkhanid albarello.

understood which correspond to 1344 or 1345. There are examples in both thepanel style and non-relief imitation Sultanabad wares, but none in the grey slip-relief with red highlights. These serve to demonstrate how long fashions lastedin ceramic decorative motifs, as well as placing all these wares firmly in the four-teenth century. Morgan proposed that the Ilkhanid version was made until the latefourteenth century.49 The chronicles tell us nothing about the effects of the Black Death of 134849 on the ceramics industry, and the jury is still out as to when theinfluence of Chinese blue and white began on both the Iranian and Egypto-Syrianpotters, which was the next fashionable trend in both areas.

Watson included the monumental monochrome relief ware jars in his list of Mongol products, citing two dated examples in American collections, dated 681/1282 and 683/1284.50 The lack of archaeological contexts for such a ware, however

fragmentary, makes him rather guarded about their reliability. There is one piecewith traces of enamelling orlajvardina decoration in the Berlin collection, whichshould allay his fears.51 In a Mamluk context there are a number of lead-glazed,earthenware moulded cups, with inscribed benedictions, that are found at most


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Figure 12: Mamluk imitation example Sultanabad in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait.

Figure 13: Mamluk polychrome relief ware, or imitation Sultanabad, with a riderless, richly ca-parisoned horse bowl base fragment.


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Figures 14 and 15: Two dated fragments.

sites in Greater Syria.52Many of them are stem-footed cups, but bear no relation tothe monumental Ilkhanid jars. They are thought to have been made in Jerusalem.I was only able to locate one example amongst the British collections.53

With the sources silent on most aspects of this craft, we have to rely on observa-tions and archaeology to gain a clearer picture of who influenced whom, how, andwhen. Theenigmaof the coloured-groundslip-relief or Sultanabad designs, popu-lar amongst the potters of all three fourteenth-century political centres, could wellbe the key to the question of who influenced whom. No examples of the GoldenHorde material have been found to date in Iranian or Egypto-Syrian contexts, butthey have been in the West.54 Iranian examples are even rare in Mesopotamia, judging by Gerald Reitlingers sherd collection in the Ashmolean Museum and var-ious excavation reports. Mamluk shapes and designs are more frequently found atIraqi sites, pointing to trade contacts via the Euphrates corridor. However, thereis a sub-group of grey relief wares, purportedly produced in Khurasan and coinedBojnurd wares by the dealers,55 which reflect another instance of influence fromthe original prototype. The distribution picture is totally different for Mamluk products, perhaps largely due to Mamluk control of the spice trade through theKarimi merchants.56Closedforms are more common, possibly indicating that they were exported as containers rather than empty vessels. The widespread finds of Mamluk drug jars include examples of the non-relief wares,57 and continued intothe fifteenth century with blue and white copies, which even found their way toLondon.58 Some were certainly exported in their own right,59 and their popularity

is reflected in their imitations, albeit with different decorative motifs, in the Span-ish and Italian potteries from the fifteenth century onwards. The limited voguefor tile revetments in Cairo introduced post 1323 only lasted a couple of decades,but the copying of Sino-Mongol motifs such as the lotus and phoenix continued


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Notes

1 Bethany Walker, Ceramic evidence for political transformations in early Mamluk Egypt,

Mamluk Studies Review8/1 (2004), 1114.2 Arthur Lane,Early Islamic Pottery , (London, 1957), 9.3 J.W. Allan, L.R. Llewellyn and F. Schweizer, The history of the so-called Egyptian faience in

Islamic Persia: investigations into Abul-Qasims treatise,Archaeometry 15/2 (1973), 171.4 YvesPorter, Lequatrimechapitredu jav aher-n ame-ye Ne.z am,ineds.N.Pourjavadyand.

Vesel,Sciences, Techniques et Instruments dans le Monde Iranien XXIX sicle, (Tehran, 2004),34160.

5 Robert B.J. Mason,Shine Like the Sun: Lustre-Painted and Associated Pottery from the Medieval Middle East , (Ontario, 2004), 73.

6 Ibid., 108.7 Lane,Early Islamic Pottery , pl. 52B. OA 1920.3-26.1: see http://www.britishmuseum.org/

explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/s/stonepaste_bottle.aspx for a full description.8 For a relatively recent exhibition catalogue see the Institute du Monde ArabesLOrient de Sal-

adin: lArt des Ayyoubides, (Paris, 2001), 13136 and 15873, cat. nos. 16069.9 Charles Vignier, Notes sur la cramique Persane, Revue des Arts Asiatiques2/3 (1925), 45.

10 P. J. Riis and Vagn Poulsen,Hama, Fouilles et Recherches 193138:vol. 4/2les Verreries et Po-teries Mdivales, (Copenhagen, 1957), 182198.

11 Julia Gonnella, Eine neue zangidisch-aiy ubidische Keramikgruppe aus Aleppo,Damaszener Mitteilungen 11 (1999), 16377; pl. 26.

12 There are several wasters in the British Museum collection that are said to have been found ata factory site in the city of Aleppo, as opposed to the Governorate, with Raqqa implied seeMarilyn Jenkins-Madina,Raqqa Revisited , (New York, 2006), 108, W132.

13 See alsogeometric examples in the DamascusMuseum(5790 Catalogue du Muse NationaldeDamas, (Damascus, 1999), 170, fig. 70); Islamic Ceramics Museum, Cairo, no. 5371.19; GayerAnderson Museum, Cairo, no. 418; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. sf41165-2a;and figural Gayer Anderson Museum, Cairo, no. 614. The Gayer Anderson Museum, Cairo,numbers are those designated by myself when digitally recording the contents of two cabinetsin Room F.

14 Rachel Ward, Mongol Mania at the Mamluk Court, edited manuscriptkindly supplied by theauthor, an as yet unpublished paper given at a Mongol conference organised by R Hillenbrand,Edinburgh 1995 (1996), 4.

15 Bernard OKane, Taj al-DinAlishah: the reconstruction and influence of his mosque inTabriz, manuscript kindly supplied by the author, an as yet unpublished paper, citing an ac-count preserved in the Mamluk history of al-Ayns Iqd al-juman , taken from al-Yusuf sNuzha an Arabic copy was made available to OKane by Donald Little, who indicated thatTiesenhausens nineteenth-centurytranslation hadomitted some vital parts of the text. See alsoD. Behrens-Abouseif,The Minarets of Cairo, (London, 2010), 155159.

16 Ibid., 7 of MS, note 47.17 J. Michael Rogers, Evidence for Mamluk-Mongol relations, 12601360, in eds. Andr Ray-

mond, J.M. RogersandMagdiWahba,Colloque Internationalesur lHistoire du Caire, 27 mars-5avril 1969, (Cairo, 1972), 386.

18 Ibid., 387.19 Michael Meinecke, Die mamlukische Fayencemosaikendekorationen: Eine Werksttte aus

Tabrz in Kairo (13301350),Kunst des Orients 11 (197677), 85144.20 Robert Irwin,The Middle East in the Middle Ages: the Early Mamluk Sultanate 12501382,

(Beckenham, 1981), 119.21 Email communication, September 2009.22 Marilyn Jenkins, Mamluk underglaze-painted pottery: foundations for future study,Muqar-

nas 2 (1984), 95114.23 G. St. G. M. Gompertz,Chinese Celadon Wares, (London, 1980), 26.24 George T. Scanlon, The Fustat mounds: a shard count 1968,Archaeology 24/2 (1971), 230.


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25 Personal communication from VroniqueFranois,whohasworkedon thematerial from bothcitadels.

26 C. A. S.Williams,Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, 3rd revised edition, (New York, 1976), 185.

27 For an illustrated example see the Ashmolean website for a dish in this style: http:// jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/4/837/838/all/per_page/100/offset/0/sort_by/seqn./category/All%20objects/start/1300/end/1388/object/639-1978.2305 and eds. Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni,The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia,12561353, (New York, 2002), 200, fig. 238.

28 Riis and Poulsen,Hama , 220, fig. 756; and Aleppo Citadel no. 10088, as yet unstudied.29 Yuka Kadoi,Islamic Chinoiserie: the Art of Mongol Iran, (Edinburgh, 2009), 3973.30 Oliver Watson, Pottery under the Mongols, in ed. Linda Komaroff,Beyond the Legacy of

Genghis Khan, (Leiden/Boston, 2006), 32545, pl. 26, figs. 6879.31 Yolande Crowe,Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn., (Leiden, 1978), 4, s.v. Khazaf, pl. XLVII.1;

Marco Spallanzani,Ceramiche Orientali a Firenze nel Rinascimento, (Florence, 1978), 106,pl. 11.32 See argument in Rosalind Wade Haddon, Unravelling the Enigmatic 14th Century Mamluk and Mongol Finewares: How to Solve the Problem, in ed. Margaret Graves,Arab Art, Archi-tecture and Material Culture: New Perspectives, (proceedings of a graduate conference held atEdinburgh University), August 2007 (in press).

33 Komaroff and Carboni,Legacy , 2002, fig. 241; or for a web image: http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/islamic_art/covered_jar/objectview.aspx?page=69& sort=6&sortdir=asc&keyword=iran ceramics&fp=66&dd1=14&dd2=0&vw=1&collID=14& OID=140008756&vT=1&hi=0&ov=0, accessed 19.2.2011.

34 Esin Atl,Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks, (Washington D.C., 1981), nos. 70, 71, 77,78.

35 Ibid., nos. 68 and 69, now at LACMA.36 Ibid., no. 95, the Sharaf al-Abwani goblet in the Egyptian Embassy in Washington D.C.37 Michael D. Danti,The Ilkhanid Heartland: Hasanlu Tepe (Iran) Period I , Hasanlu Excavation

Reports vol. 2, general ed. Robert H. Dyson, Jr. (Philadelphia, 2004), col. pls. E, F.38 Riis and Poulsen,Hama , 126, fig. 384.39 Marcus Milwright, Turquoise and black: notes on an underglaze-paintedpaste of theMamluk

period,Palestine Exploration Quarterly 140/3 (2008), 213224.40 Peter Morgan, Some Far Easternelements incoloured-groundSultanabad wares, in ed.James

Allan,Islamic Art in the Ashmolean Museum part 2, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art , vol. 10 (Ox-ford, 1995), 1943.

41 Ibid., 35.42 Ibid., 36.43 Reuven Amitai, Northern Syria between the Mongols and Mamluks: political boundary, mil-

itary frontier and ethnic affinities, in eds. D. Power and N. Standen,Frontiers in Question:Eurasian Borderlands 7001700, (Basingstoke, 1999), 134.

44 G.A. Fedorov (Fyodorov)-Davydov,The Culture of the Golden Horde Cities, BAR InternationalSeries 198 (Oxford, 1984), 143 ff.

45 Arthur Lane,Later Islamic Pottery , revised edn. (London, 1971), 9.46 Morgan, Some Far Eastern, 31, Fig. 13 and David Talbot Rice in ed. B. Gray,Rashid al-Din,

(Edinburgh, 1976), nos. 57 and 58.47 See Linda Komaroff,Legacy , fig. 201.48 Edward Gibbs, Mamlukceramics (648923/12501517),Transactionsof theOriental Ceramic

Society (199899)63 (2000), 33.

49 Morgan, Some Far Eastern elements, 20.50 Watson, Pottery under the Mongols, 341.51 I.13/69, box TS 121, MIKB from the 1968 season; formerly Dahlem no. 45.52 Marcus Milwright, Modest luxuries: decorated lead-glazed pottery in the south of Bilad al-

Sham (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries),Muqarnas 20 (2003), 85111.


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