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Pottery in the written sources of the Ayyubid-Mamluk period (c. 567–923/1171–1517)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Marcus Milwright
Marcus Milwright
Affiliation:
Oriental Institute, Oxford
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Extract

Vast quantities of ceramic shards of the Ayyubid-Mamluk period have been recovered from excavations of major urban sites such as Fusṭāṭ and Ḥamā, as well as from numerous smaller settlements in the Levant. Knowledge of the range of glazed and decorated wares has been supplemented by the publication of complete vessels in museum collections. As a result of archaeological and art historical research some production sites have been identified and broad chronological divisions established within the ceramic repertoire. Less well understood, however, is the social and economic environment within which pottery was produced and utilized. In addition, analysis of the objects themselves reveals little about the value ascribed to ceramics in relation to the other craft media of the period. This paper will attempt to provide further insights into the manufacture, trade and consumption of pottery in the Levant in the Ayyubid-Mamluk period (including some comments concerning the Crusader states in Palestine) by using contemporary Arabic and Western written sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , October 1999 , pp. 504 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1999

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Professor James Allan, Dr. Jeremy Johns, and Nadia Jamil for their comments and criticisms during the preparation of this paper.

References

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86 Kahle (1956: 343).

87 For instance: Kahle (1956: 342–43); Raby and Yücel (1986: 42–6).

88 Ibn al-Bayṭar (1874: 1, 119).

89 Qalqashandī (1913–18: IV, 10).

90 Ibn Iyäs (1960–74: IV, 409).

91 Maqrīzī, , Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ՙAlī, Kitab al-Sulūk li-maՙrifat al-duwal al-muluk, ed. Ziada, M. and Ashour, S. (Cairo, 1934– 1972), II, 441–442.Google Scholar

92 Ibn Iyās (1960–74: 1, 535).

93 Ibn Iyās (1960–74: IV, 309).

94 Ibn Iyās (1960–74: IV, 442).

95 Abouseif, D. Behrens, Fatḥ Allāh and Abū Zakāriyya: physicians under the Mamluks (Supplėment aux Annales Islamologiques 10: Cairo, 1987), 35.Google Scholar

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97 Martin quoted in Hobson and Percival (1934: 21): the authors cite no documentary source although it may derive from the garbled legend reported by Evliya Çelebi. in a description of an Imperial auction in Istanbul he says that the Mamluk sultan, al-Ghawrī had learnt to make ‘Martaban’ pottery during a seven-year incarceration in Karak castle. According to the author, all 1,600 items in the sale were from the hand of the Mamluk sultan! The story of a sultan imprisoned in Karak refers to al-Nāṣir Muhammad ibn Qalāwūn and the association with al-Ghawrī may come from the use, according to Martin (see above), of the word ‘ghūrī’ in Egypt to denote celadon. See Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis: the relevant section of the Seyahatname, tr. Dankoff, R., Vol. 2 of (ed.) Kreiser, K. (Evliya Çelebi's book of travels. Land and people of the Ottoman empire in the seventeenth century: a corpus of partial editions: Leiden, 1990), 315 (279a).Google Scholar

98 Ibn Iyās (1960–74: V, 25).

99 Ibn Taghribirdī (1909–36: VI, 541); Maqrīzī, Khiṭāṭ (1855: II, 230); Ibn Iyās (1960–74: IV, 473).

100 al-Khazrajī (1906–18: II, 207–08; V, 232–34); Clavijo (1928: 224); Ibn Baṭṭuṭa(1853–58: II, 304).

101 Ibn Iyās (1960 74: 1, 393).

102 Pagani (1884: 191).

103 Ibn Iyās (1960–74: III, 241).

104 Ibn Iyās (1960–74: IV, 408).

105 Maqrīzī, Khitat (1855: II, 105).

106 Maqrīzī, Khiṭāṭ (1855: II, 68).

107 Ibn Taghrībirdī, History of Egypt from ‘Hawâdith al-duhûr fi madâ 'l-ՙayyâm wa 'l-shuhûr (845–854 A.H., A.D. 1441–1450), tr. and ed. W. Popper and W. Fischel (New Haven, 1967), 46–7, 67. The description of the pottery as ‘inscribed’ may indicate that the author is referring to local decorated pottery.

108 Maqrīzī, Sulūk (1934–72: 1, 54–55).

109 Ibn Abī ‘l-Faḍa'il (1916–20: 1, 453).

110 al-Khazrajī (1906–18: IV, 360–1; 1, 278–9).

111 Davillier, M., Les origines de la porcelaine en Europe (Paris, 1882), 9–10 (quoting Matthieu de Couchy, ms. 434, Sorbonne).Google Scholar

112 In a letter from Piero de Bibbiena to Clarice di'Medici quoted in Fabroni, Laurentii Medicis magnifici vita (Pisa, 1784), 337 apud Lane (1947: 1); Wansbrough, J., ‘A Mamluk commercial treaty concluded with the republic of Florence in 894/1489’, in Stern, S., (ed.) Documents from Islamic chanceries. First series (Oriental studies, No. 3: Oxford, 1965), 40.Google Scholar

113 Latrie, H. Mas, Histoire de l'île de Chypre sous le règne de la maison de Lusignan, (Paris 1852– 1861), III, 405–406.Google Scholar

114 Unpublished source quoted in Heyd, W., Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen Age, (tr. and ed.) Reynaud, F. (Leipzig, 1923), II, 679Google Scholar; M. Sanuto, ‘Le Vite dei Doge’ in Rerum Italicorum scriptores 22 (1785), 1169 apud Lane (1947: 1); R. Morosoni, Cronica, Venice, Museo Correr, cod. Correr 1048, f. 375r apud Raby and Yücel (1986: 28); Mas Latrie (1852–61: III, 481–83); J. Wansbrough, ‘A Mamluk letter of 877/1473’, BSOAS 24 (1961), 209; Sanuto, M., I diarii Marino Sanuto, Fulin, R. (ed.) (Venice, 1879– 1902), II, 605; V, 92.Google Scholar

115 Gregoras, Nicephoras, Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae, Part 19, (ed.) Niebuhr, B. (Bonn, 1829– 1855), II, 788–89Google Scholar. I am very grateful to Ms. Evanthia Baboula for providing a translation of this passage.

116 For examples of the use of written sources in the study of the relative value accorded to different crafts in Classical Greece, see Vickers, M., ‘Material values past and present’, European Review 4/2 (1994), 295–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

117 For instance, see Scanlon, G., ‘The Fustat mounds: a shard count, 1968’, Archaeology 24 (1971), 225.Google Scholar

118 Goitein, S.,A Mediterranean society: the Jewish communities of the Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza. Volume IV: daily life (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), 146Google Scholar: letters of merchants in Aden state: ‘I happened to get here (Fusṭāṭ or Alexandria) carnelian-red ghaḍār and everybody envied me for this’ and ‘please buy me six painted platters made in Miṣr; they should be of middle size, neither very large or very small; and twenty regular bowls and forty small ones. All should be painted, and their figures and colours should be different’.