Vase
Tetouan, Morocco
Archeological Museum
About Archeological Museum, Tetouan.
Hegira 7th / AD 13th century
1977.51.284
Fired, painted and excised earthenware.
Height 6.5 cm, max. diameter 11.5 cm, diameter base 4.8 cm, diameter mouth 8.2 cm
Almohad
Lixus, Morocco.
A vase with a spherical body resting on a foot-ring with a high tulip-shaped neck almost the same height as the body. The two curved handles starting at the neck rest on the upper part of the body. The clay is clear, highly fired, and the walls are very thin. Brown manganese-oxide paint covers the handles, and decorates the neck and the upper part of the body. Two different styles can be found on the neck. On the upper part, a painted strip is decorated with repeated excised motifs, in a shape of concentric half-circles. A frieze of arabesques divided by slightly curved vertical lines reminiscent of calligraphic characters seems to clumsily imitate the word 'Allah'. The same ornamental layout and design appear on the body. This type of drinking vase, or jarrita, with its elegant shape and a pseudo-epigraphic design that mixes the techniques of paint and excision, was widespread during the same period in the south of al-Andalus.
View Short DescriptionThis type of round-bellied drinking vessel (jarrita) with a tall tulip-shaped neck, curved handles and pseudo-epigraphic decoration crudely imitating the word 'Allah' was very common in the south of al-Andalus at this time.
Found during the excavations in the ruins of a medieval bourgeois house at the archaeological site of Lixus. The date has been confirmed by the stylistic and comparative study with reliably dated objects found in Murcia and Huelva in Spain dating from the end of the first third of 8th / 13th century.
Excavated.
Excavated at Lixus.
Ataallah, M., “La céramique musulmane à paroi incisée ou peinte à 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 "Vase" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;ma;Mus01_F;12;en
MWNF Working Number: MO 14
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