Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T14:48:51.778Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Islamic Twelfth Century C.E. Glazes from Aktobe, Kazakhstan, and Comparison to Modern Practice in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

Pamela B. Vandiver ,
Sean Arnold  and
Yeraly Akimbek
Pamela B. Vandiver*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA
Sean Arnold
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA
Yeraly Akimbek
Affiliation:
Institute of History and Archaeology, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan
*
*(Email: vandiverpb@gmail.com)
Get access

Abstract

A preliminary survey of the microstructures and compositions of representative ceramic styles using minimally invasive analytical techniques provides a method of gaining insight into the materials and techniques of ceramic production dating from the eleventh to twelfth centuries C.E. at the archaeological site of Aktobe and from the 14-15th centuries C.E. at Aspara in southeastern Kazakhstan, both walled cities on the Silk Road trading corridor. The case is made for local production based on the argument of technological style or patterning of practices. Seven ceramic sherds representative of glazed earthenware and stoneware traditions were selected for study from excavations of Y. Akimbek and others that are maintained at the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Almaty. Fragments from serving bowls, a cup and bottle were studied by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), electron beam microprobe analysis (EPMA) and refiring tests of the bodies and glazes. This initial study aims to characterize the range of physical and chemical variability of ceramics either produced at or imported into Aktobe and Aspara. Most stylistic studies consider these ceramics to have been imported from the Silk Road trade routes that connected many Central Asian cities. The styles include an imitation lusterware bowl made with a ground chromite underglaze pigment, a copper turquoise and cobalt blue and black painted white slipped alkaline-glazed cup, two green lead-glazed copper bowls, an imitation three-color of Chinese sansai bowl, a four-color lead-glazed bowl with underglaze mottled red, gray and black painted slips on a white slipped background and a stoneware bottle. Comparison of the weight ratios of the glaze compositions to possible plant ash raw material sources is presented as a possible way of studying raw material variability; however, analysis is complicated by having two other possible sources that may have supplied fluxing agents, including, salts present in the clays and salts from evaporite deposits.

Keywords

ceramicscanning electron microscopy (SEM)electron microprobe
Type
Articles
Information
MRS Advances , Volume 2 , Issue 39-40: Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology XI , 2017 , pp. 2101 - 2133
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akimbek, Yeraly, “Inscriptions on Ceramics of Medieval City Aktobe,” Procedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Kazakhstan, 122, pp. 77–81 (2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vandiver, P.B. et al., Archaeomaterials, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 185–207 (1991).Google Scholar
Chang, C. and Guroff, K.S., eds., Of Gold and Grass: Nomads of Kazakhstan, The Foundation for International Arts and Education, Bethesda, MD, pp. 145–154 (2006).Google Scholar
Caiger-Smith, Alan, Lustre Pottery, Faber and Faber Ltd, London (1985).Google Scholar
Caiger Smith, Alan, Aldermaston Pottery, 1955-1993, London (2006).Google Scholar
Anne-Marie Keblow Bernsted, Early Islamic Pottery, Archetype, London, pp. 7–10 (2003).Google Scholar
Kingery, W.D. and Vandiver, P.B., Ceramic Masterpieces, Free Press, New York, p. 111–121 (1986).Google Scholar
Borgia, I., et al., in Applied Physics A, vol. 79, no. 2, pp. 257–261 and 369-372 (2004).Google Scholar
Guttierez, P.C. et al., “Composition, Nanostructure, and Optical Properties of Silver and Silver-copper Lusters,” Jour. Am. Ceram. Soc., 93 [8], pp. 2320–2328 (2010).Google Scholar
Pradell, T., Molina, G., Molera, J. and Tite, M.S., “Composition of the Lustre Pigment Used in the Production of Thirteenth Century A.D. Raqqa Lustreware from Syria,” Archaeometry, 58, pp. 979–986 (2016).Google Scholar
Randohr, Paul, The Ore Minerals and Their Intergrowths, Pergamon Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 923–931 (1969).Google Scholar
Heinsch, M.F., Vandiver, P.B., Lyublyanovics, K., Choyke, A.M., Reedy, C., Tourtellotte, P., and Chang, C., “Ceramics at the Emergence of the Silk Road: A Case of Village Potters from Southeastern Kazakhstan during the Late Iron Age,” Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology, vol. 10, 31 pp., 2013, in press; and P.B. Vandiver, “Survey and Study of Kazakh Clay Resources from Almaty to the Chinese Border,” unpublished study (2017).Google Scholar
Xie, J. L., He, F. and Xu, C., Jour. of Soc. of Glass Technology, vol. 36, p. 139ff (1995).Google Scholar
Vandiver, P.B., et al., in Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road: Proc.. of the Second Int’l. Conf. on the Conservation of Grotto Sites, Agnew, Neville, ed., Getty Publications, Los Angeles, pp. 234–248 (2010).Google Scholar
Rye, O.S. and Evans, C., Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, no. 21, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., pp. 148–149, 180-185 (1976).Google Scholar
Arnold, S. and Vandiver, P.B., “Characterization of a Modern Ceramic from Balkh,” Afghanistan,” unpublished paper, 6 pp. (2015).Google Scholar
Vandiver, P.B., et al., “Replications of Critical Technological Processes and the Use of Replicates as Characterization Standards,” Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology VIII, MRS Symp. Proc., vol. 1047, pp. 353–371 (2008).Google Scholar
Wulff, H., Traditional Crafts of Persia, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, (1966), and analysis of Wulff’s materials collected at Multan, Pakistan, in 1966, and residing in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Vandiver, P.B., “Craft Knowledge as an Intangible Cultural Property: A Case of Samarkand Tiles and Traditional Potters in Uzbekistan,” Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology, vol. 7, Vandiver, P.B., Mass, J.L. and Murray, A., eds., Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc., vol. 852, pp. 331–352 (2005).Google Scholar