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A Bronze Bowl Excavated at Ghubayrā

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Géza Fehérvári
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Extract

During the first season of excavations in 1971 at the Islamic site of Ghubayrā, in Kirmān province, a complete and richly decorated bronze bowl came to light. It was found on the Citadel Central Mound in a room designated room 1A. Because of the finds recovered from here such as Saljūq white pottery, a small lustre-painted bowl, a minā'ī sherd, and some glass vessels—this room was commonly called by the excavators the ‘Seljūq room’. The excavation of this room, together with its ground-plan and elevation, has already been reported, and the bronze bowl has also been illustrated. As only a few complete Islamic metal objects have been discovered in scholarly excavations, this piece from Ghubayrā deserves a separate study.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , February 1976 , pp. 99 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1976

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References

1 Excavation inv. no. GH.71–1. The bowl is now in the Mūza-i Īrān-i Bāstān in Tehran. It was exhibited in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, during the sixth International Congress on Iranian Art and Archaeology in September 1972.

2 Bivar, A. D. H. and Fehérvári, G., ‘Underground chambers and an octagonal shrine. Excavations at Ghubayrā in Kirmān province in 1971 and 1972’, Proceedings of the 1st Annual Symposium of Archaeological Research in Iran, November, 1972, Tehran, Tehran, 1973, pp. 3–4Google Scholar, figs. 15–19; also in ‘Excavations at Ghubayrā, 1971: first interim report’, JRAS, 1974, 2, pp. 123–5Google Scholar, fig. 8, plate v(b).

3 ‘Underground chambers’, fig. 17; JRAS, 1974, 2, plate XII(b).Google Scholar

4 This made the reading of the word ambiguous. The correct reading was offered to the author by Mr. Muḥammad Mughayyid Warfallī.

5 Ettinghausen, R., ‘The Wade cup’, Ars Orientalis, 11, 1957, 333–41.6Google ScholarRice, D. S., The Wade cup, Paris, 1955, 16.Google Scholar

7 Ettinghausen, art. cit., 337; Koechlin, Raymond, Les céramiques musulmanes de Suse au Musée de Louvre (Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique de Perse, xix. Mission en Susiane), Paris, 1928Google Scholar, plate 4; also illustrated in Lane, Arthur, Early Islamic pottery, London, 1947Google Scholar, plate 4c; (in colour) Ry, Carel J. Du, Art of Islam, New York, 1970, p. 33.Google Scholar

8 Lane, op. cit., plate 39d. Also illustrated in Ceramiek uit de landen van de Islam, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1956, plate 8.Google Scholar

9 Pope, A. U. (ed.), Survey of Persian artGoogle Scholar (hereafter referred to as Survey), VII, plates 2A–D, 3A–D, 15P–R.

10 Porada, Edith, Ancient Iran, London, 1965, plate 2a.Google Scholar

11 Survey, x, plates 777A, 779B; Lane, , Later Islamic pottery, London, 1957Google Scholar, plate 4; Fehérvári, G., Islamic pottery: a comprehensive study based on the Barlow collection, London, 1973Google Scholar, plates 65b, 66a, 67a–b.

12 Williamson, Andrew, ‘The Yaḥyā project: Tepe Dat-i Deh’Google Scholar, in ‘Survey of excavations’, Iran, x, 1972, p. 177Google Scholar, plate XIIb.

13 Bivar, A. D. H. and Fehérvári, G., ‘Ghubayrā’, in ‘Survey of excavations’, Iran, x, 1972, p. 169, plate IIIa.Google Scholar

14 Grohmann, A., ‘Die Bronzeachale M. 388–1911 im Victoria and Albert Museum’, in Ettinghausen, R. (ed.), Aus der Welt des islamischen Kunst: Festschrift für Ernst Kühnel, Berlin, 1959, Abb. 5.Google Scholar

15 Survey, XIIGoogle Scholar, plate 129A.

16 cf. the author's forthcoming book on Islamic metalwork from the eighth to the fifteenth century in the Keir collection, London, Faber and Faber, 1976, no. 90, plate 30a.Google Scholar

17 For a study on harpies in Islamic art, cf. Baer, Eva, Sphinxes and harpies in medieval Islamic art: an iconographical study, Jerusalem, 1965.Google Scholar

18 Aga-Oglu, M., ‘A note on bronze mirrors’, Bulletin of the Detroit Museum of Art, XIII, 1931, no. 2, fig. 3.Google Scholar Also illustrated in Baer, op. cit., plate xix, fig. 33.

19 Lanci, Michelangelo, Trattato delle simboliche rappresentanze arabiche e della varia generazione de musulmani caretteri sopra differenti materie operati, Parigi, 1845–1856, IIIGoogle Scholar, plates I–IV; Pinder-Wilson, R. H., ‘An Islamic bronze bowl’, British Museum Quarterly, xvi, 3, 1951, pp. 85–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, plate XXXII. For the best illustration of the lid, cf. RiceD, S. D, S., The Wade cup, plate XVIb.Google Scholar

20 Rice, D. S., ‘The seasons and the labors of the months in Islamic art’, Ars Orientalis, 1, 1954, 25 f.Google Scholar

21 ibid., 26.

22 Survey, xii, plate 1357B.Google Scholar

23 ibid., plate 1359A, B.

24 ibid., plate 1360A, B.

25 ibid., plate 1369A, B.

26 ibid., plate 1370A.

27 JBAS, 1974, 2, pp. 124–5Google Scholar, fig. 8. For the coin, of. appendix A, no. 5, p. 138, plate XIII, 5.