Tomb Marker, in the Shape of a Stepped Trapezoidal Prism

Tombstone

This stone in the form of a small sarcophagus would have been attached to a larger lid of a grave marker. Extant examples of such tombstones range in date from the late tenth to the early thirteenth century.[1] While the limestone grave covers of this type from Siraf are decorated with elaborate kufic inscriptions, most of the ornament on this piece is geometric and vegetal. Each of the long sides has three sections. On either side of the wider central section are two arches with a scallop design in the arch, below which a vine in the form of a stylized leaf encloses a trefoil. The latter motif is repeated twice in a band below the arches. The center section, bordered at right and left by vertical bands of simple interlace, contains a short inscription band and, below it, four rows of four hexagons containing crosses. A ridged socle with triangular extensions forms the base of this grave marker and would have been contiguous with the rectangular lid of the tomb. Since the inscriptions include a truncation of the basmala and the phrase "to them," the name of the deceased can be assumed to have been carved on the sides of the tomb cover to which this piece was attached.

Unlike other grave covers, which have complex epigraphic decoration on the sides and little or none on the top, some of the dense ornament here recalls filigree jewelry. Given the supposed provenance of the stone as coming from a cemetery in Hamadan, the connection to jewelry may not be far-fetched, since Hamadan was a commercial city of which the main exports were "gold work and leather articles."[2] The scallop design in the arches, reminiscent of a similar design in MMA no. 31.50.1, has funerary associations going back to the Romans and continuing in Coptic art and Islamic Egypt, so its appearance here is iconographically consistent with broader trends in commemorative sculpture and architecture. Unfortunately, not enough inscriptional evidence remains for an identification of the person who lay beneath this marker.

Sheila R. Canby in [Canby, Beyazit, and Rugiadi 2016]

Footnotes:

1- Whitehouse, David. "Excavations at Siraf: First Interim Report." Iran 6, 1968, p. 20.

2- Frye, R[ichard] N. "Hamadhan." In EI2 1960–2009, vol. 3, 1971, pp. 105–6.

Inscription: Inscribed in Arabic in kufic, on the upper central panel
of the front:
بسم الله ]. . .[
In the name of God [. . .]
On the upper central panel of the reverse:
عليهم
Upon them.

[ Art market, Near East, until 1930; sold to MMA through Maurice Dimand]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs," April 25–July 24, 2016, no. 202.

Dimand, Maurice S. "A Recent Gift of Near Eastern Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., vol. 26 (March 1931). p. 8, ill. fig. 3 (b/w).

Canby, Sheila R., Deniz Beyazit, and Martina Rugiadi. "The Great Age of the Seljuqs." In Court and Cosmos. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 202, p. 305, ill. (color).