Book: Ceramics - Art or Science? Author: Dr. Stan Jones

9. Ceramic Development in the Middle East

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It is from around 1,500 BC that Persian architectural ceramics became particularly interesting. They were used as ornaments such as horizontal glazed pegs in walls, square plaques (unglazed ones originally date from 2,500 BC), and blue, green and white glazed tiles, similar to the ones in the Elamite temple at Tchoga Zanbil.

Persian Amlash grey ware bowl 1,200 BC - courtesy Collector-Antiquities

Persian Amlash grey ware bowl 1,200 BC -
courtesy Collector-Antiquities

At the start of the Iron Age, around 1,200 BC, a new grey ware came into Western Iran from the North East. In Central Iran around 1,000 BC they produced beautifully decorated vessels often as bridge-spouted pots. A burnished grey ware spouted jug on a graceful pottery stand 50cms overall is a good example dated to around 900 BC. Decoration could be vivid and represented animals and patterns probably related to their textiles. A tripod vessel found in the Rumishan region of Luristan has a very attractive checkerboard pattern with red paint on a cream ground dated to 900 BC.

Persian spouted vessels, Amlash slipped and burnished and Sialk decorated, both 9/8 centuries BC - courtesy Milwaukee Public Museum, and a decorated jug from Susa, 1,000 BC

Persian spouted vessels, Amlash slipped
and burnished and Sialk decorated, both
9/8 centuries BC - courtesy Milwaukee
Public Museum, and a decorated jug from
Susa, 1,000 BC

Around 1,000 BC in Sialk (Elam) they produced elaborately painted red on buff wares on the same shaped vessels that the Khurvin (Northern Persian) potters produced as very fine, thin-walled grey burnished wares. An amazing jug 20cms tall with a very long bridge spout painted in red on cream with horned animal decoration dated to 900 BC was also found in Sialk.

9.45 The First Persian Empire (550-331 BC)

The first Persian Empire was founded on the Median Empire (728-550 BC) that covered present North Central Iran.

Map of Persian Empire 500 BC - source Thomas Lessman

Map of Persian Empire 500 BC - source
Thomas Lessman

Cyrus II “The Great” (558-529), based in Persis, south of Susa in Susiana, defeated his grandfather, the King of Medes in 550 BC, and united the Medians and Persians to start the Achaemenid Empire that lasted for two centuries. The Achaemenid tribe came from the Eastern side of the Persian Gulf where they controlled a significant area. Apparently his grandfather had dreamt Cyrus would overthrow him so ordered his death as a baby, but his followers disobeyed him and hid him instead. Cyrus was an extremely successful warrior leader and his Empire grew rapidly, defeating the Lydians of Anatolia in 546 BC and the Babylonians in 539 BC exiling their king. Following his entry into Babylon he commissioned a fired clay cylinder, “the Cyrus Cylinder” now in the British Museum. It is described as the first “Charter of Human Rights” and a replica is located in the UN Headquarters in New York. It is also said to have influenced the US Constitution. It refers to Babylon as Babili, translated as the “Gateway to the Gods”. Cyrus was the first leader to be titled Shah. He died in battle against the Turanians/Scythians north east of the Caspian Sea in 529 BC having started the greatest Empire the world had seen, eventually stretching from Egypt to the Indus Valley and from Greece to Central Asia. However, he ruled it through peaceful diplomacy rather than violence.  

His successor at Susa, Cambyses II (529-522 BC), defeated the Egyptians in 525 BC and spread into North Africa as far as Libya and Nubia. Phoenicia submitted, giving Cambyses a fleet, but his campaigns against the Carthaginians and Ethiopians failed.

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