Drinking vessel
Larache, Morocco
Museum of Archaeology
Hegira 7th / AD 13th century
4R79-49
Wheel-thrown ceramic, painted and excised.
Height 18 cm, base diameter 5.6 cm, max. diameter 14.5 cm, opening diameter 11 cm
Almohad
Lixus, Morocco.
This vessel, in the form of a small jar, is made of fine well-fired clay covered with engobe (slip). It would have been used as a drinking vessel. Its slightly ovoid belly is marked at the base by a lip protruding above a narrow and shallow foot, which gives it some stability. Its vertical neck ending in a large opening is flanked by two small round handles attached to the top of the belly. Traces from its manufacture appear in the form of horizontal rings marking the belly. The neck, handles and base of the belly are covered with brown manganese paint. A frieze of small excised circles, delimited by two lines, decorates the neck. The belly is painted with medallions filled with stylised plant motifs and separated by double horizontal and diagonal lines. They are framed by large rectilinear motifs imitating epigraphic decoration.
Its original shape and its decoration (painting and excision) make this recipient characteristic of earthenware common in the Almohad period.
This small jar-shaped recipient would have been used as a drinking vessel. Made of fine, well-fired clay covered with engobe (slip) and decorated with paint and excisions, it is characteristic of ceramics common in the Almohad period for its original shape and decoration.
Found in the ruins of a medieval bourgeois house at the archaeological site of Lixus. The date has been confirmed by stylistic study and comparison with other reliably dated objects found in Murcia and Huelva in Spain from the first third of the 7th / 13th century.
Excavated.
Excavated from the site at Lixus.
Ataallah, M., “La céramique musulmane à paroi incisée ou peinte de Lixus”, Bulletin d'archéologie marocaine VII, 1967, pp.627–39.
Bazzana, A., “La céramique médiévale'” in Maroc, les trésors du royaume, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1999.
Navarro Palazón, J., La céramique hispano-arabe à décor esgrafié, trans. Bazzana, Madrid, 1986.
Ponsich, M., Lixus, le quartier des Temples, Études et travaux d'archéologie marocaine series, Vol. IX, Rabat, 1981, p.127.
Naima El Khatib-Boujibar "Drinking vessel" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;ma;Mus01_E;11;en
MWNF Working Number: MO 13
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