Early Islamic pottery from Khirbat al-Askar on the Karak Plateau
The Middle Islamic period on the Karak plateau covers the periods of Crusader, Ayyubid and early Mamluk rule. Such dynastic labels are not, however, very useful when looking at the types of pottery found on most of the sites in the region because there is no evidence that the styles of pottery used by the inhabitants of the small towns and villages that covered the plateau changed as the result of larger political developments. For instance, it is known that the Crusader settlements on the coast in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries manufactured a wide variety of decorated lead-glazed pottery, as well as making use of pottery imported from Italy, Cyprus and the lands around the Aegean sea. Despite the fact that the Crusaders controlled most of southern Jordan between c.1116 and 1188-89, there is very little evidence from excavations and field surveys that they imported pottery from the Palestine coast into Jordan. Apart from a few possible examples of Crusader pottery from Palestine castles such as Karak, Shawbak and Wu`ayra (near Petra), we must assume that the Crusader population made use of pottery made in Jordan. As a result, we should be cautious of assigning labels such as “Ayyubid” or “Mamluk” to pottery; it is preferable to seek to date the pieces according to the century or, if possible, decades in which they are known to have been manufactured.The pottery found on the Karak plateau in the Middle Islamic can be divided into several broad categories according to the technologies used in their manufacture. First are handmade vessels (see: the emergence of handmade pottery in the Middle Islamic period) which would have been made principally in villages for local use. Handmade sherds are the most common types of Middle Islamic pottery finds on excavations and field surveys of the plateau. Second is wheel thrown unglazed pottery. As with the Early Islamic period, wheel thrown unglazed pottery was made using different levels of technological sophistication and to perform a wide range of functions. Middle Islamic wheel thrown unglazed vessels include medium-sized water jugs (known in Arabic as ibrīqs), basins, bowls and, lastly, large storage vessels that might have held valuable products such as olive oil, grape syrup or wine. The form of the Middle Islamic ibrīq is still manufactured in Jordan today, illustrating how well the vessel design performs its basic function of storing and cooling water. A final type of unglazed storage vessel found at Karak castle and a few other places on the plateau is the sugar pot. These conical vessels were used in the production of sugar in the Dead Sea valley. The vessel would have the small hole at the bottom stoppered and then was filled with boiled sugar syrup. The syrup was then allowed to cool and crystallize into sugar (a conical mound known as a “sugar loaf”). Once this was done the stopper was removed and the remaining liquid (the molasses) was poured off into a separate container. Sugar was an expensive commodity and the finds of sugar pots in the castle reflect the high status and wealth of many of the occupants during the Middle Islamic period.
Early Islamic pottery from Khirbat al-Askar on the Karak PlateauThe interpretation of the pottery of the Early Islamic period on the Karak plateau has proved to be difficult for several reasons. Although large quantities of Islamic pottery have been collected on sites all over the plateau by the J. Maxwell Miller survey, the dating of the finds requires comparison with reliably dated pottery from excavations. Unfortunately, very few published excavations on the Karak plateau have preserved material from the Early Islamic centuries and so archaeologists have to seek comparisons with sites north of the plateau (such as `Amman citadel, Dhibān and Hasbān), south of the plateau (such as Gharandal and `Aqaba), and in the Jordan valley (such as Pella, Tal Abū Qa`dān and Bet She’an). The problem with this method is that we do not know if the new styles of pottery found at these sites were also used in the more remote area of the Karak plateau. It is probable, in fact, that many of the settlements continued to use pottery forms corresponding to types known from the Byzantine period. As a result, surveys and excavations often identify these archaic types as being of Byzantine rather than Early Islamic date.In the first century of the Islamic occupation (up to c.750) the inhabitants of the Karak plateau seem to have continued to use the sorts of unglazed wheel thrown pottery that were common in the Byzantine period. Surveys and excavations have found examples of basins, casseroles and pots used for the preparation and serving of food. The color of the glazed ceramic may vary from brick red, to orange or grey. A characteristic feature of the grey pottery is the corrugation of the exterior surface of vessels. In addition, there are a few thin-walled sherds carrying decoration applied in colored slip paint. This sort of freely-applied painted decoration is common in late seventh- and eighth-century deposits from places such as Pella in the Jordan valley. A few sherds of relief-molded pottery are found from the period up to c.900. These can take the form of beakers or jugs with delicately molded patterns. The other common molded form of this period are oil lamps. This type of simple lamp (sometimes known as a “slipper lamp”) was made all over Jordan, Syria and Palestine at this time.Some examples have short inscriptions written in Arabic. From the end of the eighth century one starts to find very small numbers of sherds with colored glazes. Typically, the glazes are yellow, green or purple in color. In some cases, a decorative effect is achieved by dripping or splashing more than one color on a single bowl. The technique of adding a glaze to pottery was to become much more common on the Karak plateau in the Middle Islamic period.
Glazed pottery was generally more expensive than unglazed because it required a larger range of raw materials and greater skill to produce. Although some simple glazed pottery appears to have been produced at Karak, the majority of it was exported onto the plateau from production centers at the south end of the Dead Sea, and the towns and cities of Palestine and Syria. Different grades of glazed pottery were produced in the Middle Islamic period. At the lowest level are the monochrome lead-glazed bowls and jars that are found in large numbers at Karak, and in smaller numbers elsewhere. Produced between the twelfth and the fifteenth century, such vessels would have been used for the serving or storage of food and drink. Lead-glazed pottery might also be decorated with incisions under the glaze (known as “sgraffito”) or relief-molded decoration.
The best quality of Islamic pottery in this period is made with a material known as stone paste (for an explanation, see: glossary). This white paste – originally made to imitate the visual qualities of Chinese porcelain – would usually be painted with patterns (usually in blue and black pigments) and then covered with a transparent glaze that could be either colorless or tinted green, turquoise or blue. This type of pottery was made at several centers in Syria during the Middle Islamic period. Vessels include bowls, cups and jugs, as well as small storage vessels that were used for the storage and transport of luxury products like preserved fruit, ginger and medicines. Some very fine examples of stone paste pottery of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have been found at Karak castle, and much smaller quantities come from settlements near the main route through the region, the King’s Highway. At the top of the scale were the glazed ceramics imported from China. Chinese pottery was much prized all through the Islamic period for its elegant shapes, decoration and, above all, the strength of the porcelain clay from which it was made. The cost of a Chinese bowl far exceeded that of even the finest vessels produced in Syria, and so only the most wealthy in society could afford them. The only site on the plateau to contain examples of Chinese pottery is Karak castle.
The later Islamic period on the Karak plateau has proved to be difficult to trace through archaeological research. The J. Maxwell Miller survey of the region found large amounts of coarse handmade pottery, but it is very difficult to distinguish the sherds dating from the Middle Islamic and the Later Islamic periods. Although it has yet to be proved conclusively, it appears that the quality of handmade pottery with painted decoration decreases in quality after the fourteenth century. We know from the reports of European travelers that this sort of coarse pottery was made in rural areas of Jordan and Palestine at least until the end of the nineteenth century, and a few villages in the north of Jordan were still making attractive handmade pottery until the early 1980s. At present, we do not have reliable information to be able to distinguish the handmade ceramics of different centuries in the Later Islamic period.
Fortunately, we do have examples of other types of pottery that can be more securely dated. Amongst the pottery found in Karak there are pieces of imported pottery dating to this period that show how the inhabitants of the town and castle were still able to obtain manufactured goods imported from Syria and Palestine, as well as more remote locations. Particularly interesting is the presence of glazed pottery from Italy and China dating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Such luxury items would have been very expensive because of the difficulty of transporting them over both land and sea, and they perhaps were objects used by the governor of Karak or some other high official. Some types of unglazed wheel thrown pottery can be dated to the Later Islamic period. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries towns such as Gaza and other coastal towns started to produce a distinctive type of grey-bodied pottery. Most common were jugs and jars used for carrying water. This sturdy, functional pottery was exported to the regions of Jordan.
Another type of ceramic object that must date to the Later Islamic period are clay pipes for the smoking of tobacco. In recent years, archaeologists have recognized the importance of these objects for dating purposes. We know from written sources that tobacco was first imported from the Americas to Istanbul in c.1600. Although the authorities in the city tried to ban its use, the craze for tobacco smoking quickly spread all over the Ottoman empire (including Syria, Jordan and Palestine). In the seventeenth century tobacco was cultivated in areas such as Turkey, Greece and Iran. The Islamic type of tobacco pipe is known as a chibouk and consists of a clay pipe connected to a long hollow wooden stem, and finally a mouthpiece. It is the clay pipe section that most often occurs on excavations. As we know that tobacco first appeared in the Islamic world in c.1600, we can be sure that clay pipes, and the other material excavated with them, date from the seventeenth century or later. Clay pipes have been identified on surveys and excavations on a wide range of sites from the castle at Karak all the way to villages on the fringes of the plateau such as Mudaybi'
One of the most important changes of the Middle Islamic period is the widespread adoption of handmade pottery over much of the Middle East. Although this new type of pottery is most common on rural sites, it also appears in the excavations of urban settlements. The numbers per site vary, but the J. Maxwell Miller Survey of the Karak plateau found that on rural sites dating between the twelfth and the nineteenth century, handmade sherds comprised between 90 and 100% of the total ceramic assemblage (the remainder being composed of unglazed wheel thrown, relief-molded unglazed, and glazed wheel thrown pottery). This type of handmade pottery usually takes the form of small or medium-sized jugs and jars. Bowls and cups are found in smaller numbers. Some handmade pottery of this period is undecorated, but the best known type has geometric designs painted on the surface in a variety of colored slip paints. It has been suggested that the designs painted on these pots may derive from patterns found in weaving and basket making. The reasons behind this shift in the dominant technology used to manufacture ceramics are still little understood, but it is possible to trace the chronology of this phenomenon.
In the Early Islamic period the vast majority of pottery vessels were made using a conventional kick wheel. The only ceramic objects that were made without a wheel tended to be large storage vessels and objects such as clay ovens for cooking food (Arabic: tābūn). A skilled potter could use a kick wheel to produce large numbers of vessels of consistent size and shape. In order to do this, the potter required clay to be prepared to a high specification. After being thrown and dried the pots themselves had to be fired in a carefully-regulated kiln. This method of production is efficient but requires organization of man-power and materials. Kilns were usually located in urban areas and might trade their products over a large area. We know from excavations that urban workshops continued to produce wheel thrown, relief-molded and glazed pottery into the Middle Islamic period. Middle Islamic handmade pottery could be made in a very different environment, however. The clays were collected locally and given little preliminary preparation (clays might have sand, straw or dung added as a temper). Vessels were formed by hand and often burnished or decorated with painted designs. Handmade vessels were usually baked by placing them in an open or covered fire. These technical factors make it easy to distinguish handmade and wheel thrown pottery; the former usually exhibits brittle, poorly fired clays, uneven shapes, and variable surface coloration.Handmade pottery with the characteristic painted geometric patterns first appears in the Karak plateau and other parts of southern Jordan in the latter part of the twelfth century. During the thirteenth century this style of pottery had spread all over Syria and as far as southern Anatolia. Recent archaeological research at sites such as Gharandal and $Aqaba in southern Jordan have suggested that similar handmade vessels, either unpainted or with much more simple slip painting, were being produced in the eleventh and the early twelfth century. Thus, it seems likely that this new style originated in the south of Jordan and spread to rural areas in later periods.What is more difficult to understand is why the occupants of villages should have chosen to give up wheel thrown pottery in favor of handmade vessels that were less durable. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the reversion to a less sophisticated method of manufacture (as is the case with move from wheel thrown to handmade pottery production) can be taken as evidence that society in general was going through a period of economic decline. We know from archaeological and historical sources that this was not the case; the period from the twelfth to the fourteenth century appears to have been a prosperous one for the inhabitants of the Karak plateau. Another explanation looks at the technological aspects of pottery production. What is clear is that handmade pottery employed locally-available materials and required little or no specialized equipment. It was easy to learn the techniques and cheap to make. Ethnographic studies of handmade pottery production in the north of Jordan in the 1970s found that the pots were made by village women for use in the home. Thus, Middle Islamic handmade pottery might too have been made in villages by women for domestic use. If villages could make their own pottery then they became less reliant upon the more expensive wheel thrown and glazed ceramics produced in the towns.
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