Ceramic production in twelfth-century Syria and Iran saw the further experimentation, expansion, and popularization of stonepaste, an innovative material introduced in the previous century. This ceramic medium—also called fritware or siliceous ware—is made of finely ground quartz (obtained from pounding pebbles or sand), which is then mixed with small amounts of liquefied glass (glass frit or glass fragments) and refined clay.
Manufacture of stonepaste in the eleventh century began very similarly in Syria and Iran but soon developed an increasing distinction. In the twelfth century, stonepaste production expanded significantly, as witnessed by a substantial increase in production centers; advances in established techniques and the development of new ones, especially underglaze painting; a greater intricacy in decoration; and a marked stylistic divergence between Syrian and Iranian productions. These developments are exemplified by luster (16.87, 48.113.5), mina’i (57.36.4), and underglaze painted bowls (08.102.4, 41.165.2).
While stonepaste vessels are often attributed to the Seljuq period, some of the most iconic productions in the medium took place after this dynasty lost control over its eastern territories to other Central Asian Turkic groups, such as the Khwarezm-Shahis; in the western territories, the Seljuqs had been already replaced by dynasties of Kurdish origin, such as the Zangids and Ayyubids. Nevertheless, the stonepaste productions generally called “Seljuq” reflect a major trend of stylistic and technological changes started and disseminated between the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries from Iran and Central Asia to Syria and Anatolia. Scholars have endeavored to locate this technological and artistic growth in the socioeconomic expansion of a wealthy, mainly mercantile class that would have been the recipients, and rarely the patrons, of these objects. Similar developments occurred in metalwork (44.15) with the emergence of inlay, hammering, and wheel turning.
Since its appearance on the collecting arena in the nineteenth century, stonepaste from Syria and Iran has been associated with a few locales, after which wares were traditionally named. Definitions such as "Raqqa" and "Kashan ware" have become entrenched in the art historical canon, although archaeological research has significantly expanded the number of known manufacturing centers for stonepaste. Furthermore, these productions are mostly studied based on whole, decontextualized museum pieces, often restored in the twentieth century—reassembled with gypsum infills and fragments from other ancient vessels (or modern ones); retouched with gilding and overpainting; sometimes newly glazed and re-fired (57.36.9). Such restorations, now criticized but then perceived as best practice, were common also in little-explored arenas of the antiquities trade, where they at times overlapped with the manufacture of replicas and counterfeits.
The endemic issue of modern restorations significantly impacted scholarship on twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Syrian and Iranian stonepaste, as does the discount of an archaeological context and of the myriad variants only found among fragments, which are retrieved from medieval residential or productive urban sites. In fact, a new interest in ceramic studies today focuses on the multiple lives of the objects, from their manufacturing to their modern handling by dealers and conservators, as well as their exhibition in museums.
The increase of manufactures and mass production is better documented in twelfth-century Syria. Here, the stonepaste industry exploited a cheaper manufacturing and firing process, the result of which was a slightly coarser, more friable body quite different from the hard, fine, compact, and often vitrified body of the earliest stonepaste wares. Even luster was executed using a less energy-consuming technique, resulting in a brown, nonmetallic shine, and lead-based glazes were gradually substituted by alkali-lead glazes. The greater affordability of these later wares is reflected in the widespread dissemination of their manufacturing centers and their use across classes.
At this time, true underglaze painting—mostly in black or blue under a colorless or turquoise glaze (34.71) but also in polychromy (41.165.2)—became standard. In addition to sophisticated objects with underglaze designs executed by skilled masters, a repertory of standardized filling motifs was developed and deployed also on less refined objects. Luster, too, began to appear on underglaze-painted objects (48.113.16, 07.212.3). Monochrome pieces, predominantly molded, continued to be produced, most often as small portable elements such as tabourets (57.61.13) and inkwells, as well as human or animal-shaped vessels or figurines (66.23, 64.59, 30.95.153). Vessels for serving prepared food remained the most common productions, although their shapes are simpler than those from the previous century. Typical of the period are a bowl with curved walls and an everted rim (20.52.3) and a straight-walled biconical bowl (48.113.6).
These twelfth-century Syrian vessels are often called “Raqqa ware" for the site along the Euphrates River from which many of them came to Western collections in the early twentieth century. At that time, however, objects were often indiscriminately attributed to Raqqa, in response to market requests. Archaeological investigations of the last hundred years have shown that Raqqa was but one of several production centers in a region that spanned northern Jazira, Syria, and Egypt. Several of these centers may also have yielded polychrome underglaze-painted pieces known as “Rusafa” (or “Resafa”) ware (41.165.2, x.365), testifying to shared techniques and visual languages that transcended political and dynastic boundaries.
At the same time, newly excavated assemblages reveal complex variations and local features that underscore the independent developments taking place at all these sites. For example, a group detected at Qal‘at Ja‘bar, on the northern Euphrates, has the same body and shapes of the earliest stonepaste vessels but with different (alkali-lead) glaze. A group of underglaze-painted stonepaste with distinct reserve-painted medallions appears to be produced at Aleppo in the north (although maybe also elsewhere). At Gritille, in southern Anatolia, a group of clay vessels from the second half of the twelfth century is visually identical to (and overlaps with) stonepaste production, even including luster; their limited number, uniformity of shapes and glazes (mainly turquoise and manganese), and the high percentage of luster-decorated items argue for a local production. Finally, the nearby site of Tille Hoyuk delivered the finding of a ware that is painted under a double layer of glaze.
Twelfth- and Early Thirteenth-Century Iranian Stonepaste
From at least the middle of the twelfth century, Iran saw a marked shift in taste from monochrome vessels of minimal embellishment to richly decorated, inscribed, and colorful objects of larger, more elaborate shape (32.52.1). These developments speak to the higher expectations of consumers toward the containers and tools employed for serving food; they might also reflect a change in food consumption or serving etiquette. During this time, serving vessels became more standardized in form, with two basic bowl shapes—low-carinated ones similar to their Syrian counterparts, and others with rounded walls—and dishes with everted rims. Such codification attests to industrial-style production, possibly subdivided into specialized phases of manufacture, which would have made these more sophisticated wares available to a larger number of consumers. Also, most vessels, including wheel-thrown plain bowls, were produced with molds. An earthenware mold excavated in a kilns area at Nishapur (48.101.5a, b) illustrates the manufacturing process, showing how technological advancement and artistic sophistication were incorporated into an industry focused on extensive production. The use of molds was likely meant to counter the stiffness of the siliceous compound while increasing the rapidity and the volume of pieces produced.
Furthermore, as colorful elements started enriching Iranian baked-brick buildings, and perhaps less frequently Syrian ones (10.56.1), the manufacture of stonepaste expanded beyond the production of serving, lighting, and storage vessels. Large stonepaste tiles, often marked with a carved epigraphic decoration and glazed in a deep turquoise color, would be assembled to create decorative frames (37.40.23, 37.40.24).
The development of underglaze painting in Iran took a different course than it did in Syria and built on local slip-painting traditions. Analysis of so-called silhouette ware reveals that black pigment was mixed into a quartz slip (1970.36), with true underglaze-painting with no slip medium developing only later (39.40.107, 20.120.32). Although the underglaze technique was common, it does not seem to have had quite the same currency or so wide a reach as Syrian underglaze-painted wares. For this reason, coupled with the favor shown them by Western collectors when they first became known at the beginning of the twentieth century (and despite the modern integrations of restorations), the most extensively studied Iranian stonepaste wares of the twelfth century and early thirteenth centuries are luster-painted and mina’i ceramics. They are also among those that were most extensively restored in modern times.
While luster-painted ceramics were a ninth-century invention of Iraqi potters and the technique was employed on stonepaste already in the eleventh century, mina’i—the modern term for haft rang (seven color)—was a novel and distinctive Iranian method of overglaze painting (enameling) that was sometimes paired with gilding (57.36.4, 57.61.16). It may have been transposed from techniques employed on different materials, such as glass enameling.
Luster and mina’i are mainly associated with the city of Kashan. Both techniques are described in the most important medieval text on Iranian stonepaste, written by Abu ’l-Qasim in the early fourteenth century, by which point mina’i had been discontinued. The text also contains an unprecedented (and accurate) description of stonepaste technology. Abu ’l-Qasim was uniquely qualified to write such a tome, for his family had made ceramics in Kashan for generations. Other family-run potteries in the city can be identified by inscriptions on their creations. A pierced bowl, for instance, is inscribed “Made by Hasan al-Qashani,” the latter portion of the name linking the potter to Kashan (68.223.9). Kashan was undoubtedly a major center for most technologies related to stonepaste and is largely believed to have had a virtual monopoly on more sophisticated ceramics such as lusterware.
Stonepaste, however, was produced throughout the region: a dearth of archeological excavations of workshops and kilns does not extend to the kilns unearthed at Nishapur, while at least nine groupings, presumably of diverse origin, have been identified through petrographic analyses (Rayy was the only site from which a waster was available for investigation). Finally, the late twelfth-century Jawahir nama (Book of precious stones) of Muhammad b. Abu ’l-Barakat Jawhari Nishapuri implies that Isfahan was a second site of luster production in Iran.
The apparent progression of styles of decoration and shapes of objects in lusterwares and mina’i suggest a general chronology, but the incomplete archeological record has prompted scholars to turn to dated inscriptions to more firmly chart their development. It is generally accepted that the earliest Iranian examples, none of which is dated, are reserve-painted lusterwares, iconographically similar to coeval Syrian pieces. Large figures, often seated, with moonlike faces predominate and, in a hallmark of this so-called monumental style, usually occupy most of the surface (56.185.13). Further classifications include the sketchier miniature style, seen in both luster (66.175.1) and mina’i (17.120.41), characterized by small figures set in a spare or artificially ornate garden background; checkerboard cypresses are typical of this mode. The later “Kashan” style (late twelfth through the first two decades of the thirteenth century) merges elements of the monumental and the miniature into dense, sophisticated compositions which include geometrical partitions, narrative scenes, mystical themes, and extensive inscriptions—predominantly Persian poetry written in cursive script—that add complexity to how one would engage with such objects (1983.247).
The number of stylistic features shared by the otherwise distinct Iranian and Syrian stonepaste of the twelfth century—for instance, the dotted branches on both Iranian mina’i and Syrian polychrome underglaze-painted wares (13.219.1, 20.120.123); the moonlike faces of figures (41.165.4, 13.219.1, 66.95.9a, b, 20.120.131); the ubiquitous biconical bowl—exemplify how a common visual language was adapted to and inflected by local techniques, traditions, and tastes. At the same time, as the archeological evidence from Syria has prompted the emendation of the previously accepted timeline of production in that region, the need for an archeologically based chronology of stonepaste manufacture in Iran becomes all the more acute. In the near future, research on Iranian stonepaste from archaeological and fragmentary assemblages will undoubtedly result in a radical transformation of our knowledge of this material’s production and consumption.