Name of Object:

Bowl with inscription

Location:

Raqqada, Kairouan, Tunisia

Holding Museum:

Museum of Islamic Art

About Museum of Islamic Art, Raqqada.

Date of Object:

Hegira, last third of the 3rd century / AD 9th century

Museum Inventory Number:

C 34

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Glazed ceramic.

Dimensions:

Height 7 cm, diameter 24 cm, diameter (at base) 9 cm, thickness 1 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Aghlabid

Provenance:

Raqqada or Kairouan.

Description:

Round-based bowl with chamfered rim, coated with a green copper oxide glaze. In the centre of the bowl are four rows of kufic script written using a brown glaze (manganese oxide) with the word ‘al-Mulk’ (Sovereignty) written twice over. This expression occurs right through AH 3rd- / AD 9th-century Muslim pottery, from al-Andalus to India. The letters are drawn with split ascenders, a practice which became frequent in Ifriqiya from the second half of the AH 3rd / AD 9th century. The background colour of the lettering is yellow ochre based on antimony oxide or iron oxide and the script is surrounded by a frame of four brown rectangles.
Green, brown and yellow ochre are the three colours typically used in Aghlabid pottery. Interestingly, these three colours have been consistently employed in Tunisian pottery through the centuries and up to the present day.

Dish with a ring base and bevelled rim. The green, brown and yellow ochre colours used are the same as those typically found in Aghlabid ceramics, and they have remained an almost constant part of Tunisian ceramics through the centuries to the present day.

How date and origin were established:

Raqqada, where the bowl was found, was the Aghlabid capital city, built in 263 / 876 by Prince Ibrahim II, which makes this date a terminus ante quem. Moreover, the bowl is characteristic in its shape, colour and decoration of that of the Aghlabid period just before the advent of the Fatimids in 296 / 909. It is therefore likely that the terminus post quem can be taken at the latter date.
Unfortunately, these excavations were not carried out methodically and scientifically and no excavation record was compiled, so a more accurate dating is not possible. It is probable that the same shapes, colours and techniques were carried over to the Fatimid era.

How Object was obtained:

This bowl was found during the Raqqada site excavations in the 1960s. At first it was kept on site, but since 1986 it has been on display at the Museum of Islamic Art at Raqqada.

How provenance was established:

The discovery of this bowl on the Raqqada site, painted in the Aghlabid manner and of Ifriqiyan-style manufacture, would confirm that this was a local piece from the Raqqada potteries or from those at Kairouan, the nearest economic capital.

Selected bibliography:

Daoulatli, A., Poteries et céramiques tunisiennes, 1979, pp.32–3.
Tunisie: du christianisme à l'islam (exhibition catalogue), Lattes, 2001, p.184.
Ifriqiya: Thirteen Centuries of Art and Architecture in Tunisia, pp.174–5.

Citation of this web page:

Mourad Rammah "Bowl with inscription" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;tn;Mus01;45;en

Prepared by: Mourad RammahMourad Rammah

Né en 1953 à Kairouan, docteur en archéologie islamique, Mourad Rammah est le conservateur de la médina de Kairouan. Lauréat du prix Agha Khan d'architecture, il publie divers articles sur l'histoire de l'archéologie médiévale islamique en Tunisie et participe à différentes expositions sur l'architecture islamique. De 1982 à 1994, il est en charge du département de muséographie du Centre des arts et des civilisations islamiques. Mourad Rammah est également directeur du Centre des manuscrits de Kairouan.
Copyedited by: Margot Cortez
Translation by: David Ash
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: TN 72