Karak Resources Project

Islamic pottery and archaeology. The issues outlined above are relevant to the study of archaeological pottery from all pre-Historic and Historic periods. The same concerns can also be applied to the study of the ceramics of the Islamic period (a period from the seventh century C.E. to the present day), although other issues also need to be considered. Perhaps the most important issue is the disparity between what is considered to be “Islamic pottery” by archaeologists and art historians. If you visit many of the major museums in USA, Europe and the Middle East, or read most of the general guides to Islamic pottery, you will encounter examples of glazed and decorated vessels produced in different regions of the Islamic world from the ninth to the nineteenth century. The quality and the range of techniques employed in the manufacture of such pottery has, quite rightly, led art historians and collectors to regard the Islamic period as one of the most important in the development of fine glazed ceramics. It is important to recognize, however, that these decorated objects were only a tiny proportion of the total amount of pottery produced. The vast majority were much simpler unglazed wheel thrown vessels meant to perform a wide range of functional tasks. This situation is vividly described by a fifteenth-century Egyptian historian, Maqrizi. Discussing the Egyptian capital of Cairo, he remarks:

The interpretation of the pottery of the Early Islamic period on the Karak plateau has proved to be difficult for several reasons [reference link]. 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.

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.

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 stonepaste 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.

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.

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.