9.51 Persia (from 819 AD)

Descendants of various Turkic speaking warrior tribes who had been moving south from Central Asia set up Dynasties in parts of Persia and the power of the Abbasid Caliphs over Persia waned. The Samanids ruled East Iran through to Central Asia from 819 to 999 AD; the Ghaznavids then took over the same area but stretched east as far as North India to 1040 AD, and the Buyids controlled Western Iran from 932 to 1055 AD. This then led to the Empire of the Turkic Seljuks in 1037 AD.

Persian slip painted bowl, 8-12 centuries
AD - courtesy Barakat

The Buyids are only noted for the slip-carved or champleve decoration on their pottery. The Samanid potters produced bold and elegant pottery with a reddish earthenware body, notably in Samarkand. However, their main contribution was the perfection of slip painted wares, with white, brown or purple grounds. The wares were commonly black on white, polychrome on white and coloured slip imitation of monochrome lustre. Previously the pigments used for painting would run under the lead glaze during application or when fired, restricting the potter’s scope for decoration. With an overall slip ground and slip paint these problems were reduced and the behaviour in the kiln was more controllable and so a greater variety of decoration was possible. One of the outstanding early examples of this time had a cream or white ground with designs based on written script in manganese purple covered by a clear glaze. The writing was in Kufic characters (early Arabic characters as used in the Qur’an), and is considered the finest adaptation of Arabic script on pottery. This style was also inverted so the ground was purple and the painting cream. As time went on, the writing became stylised and less legible. The next development was to use polychrome paints over the cream ground, with depictions of arabesques, scrolls, stylised birds and flowers as well as the script in white, red, brown, black and yellow, and covered in a transparent/yellowish lead glaze.

Nishapur glazed plate, 10-12
centuries AD - courtesy
Milwaukee Public museum

At Nishapur, which was a major Eastern Iranian city on the Silk Road and noted for its turquoise mines, the potters produced polychrome buff ware that became a great export to the west. It was sometimes decorated with human and animal figures.

They also produced an imitation lustre ware that was achieved with olive green paint on the cream or white ground. Other types of Samanid pottery were champleve and sgraffito. There were three types of the latter, one called “Amol” that was always on a red body with yellow or green glaze usually found as bowls. Another had splashes of brown, yellow and green paint under a clear glaze; the decoration becoming elaborate depictions of animals and birds such as outstretched eagles. The third type, “Aghkand” ware used the incised lines to stop the overflow of paint into neighbouring areas. Large bowls and dishes were decorated with large birds, animals and flowers.

Persian Nishapur, bowls, 10-13 and 9-10
centuries AD, and a bird plate
10^th century AD - courtesy
Milwaukee Public Museum

Sgraffito bowl 13 century AD source museum
Istanbul, and sgraffito bowl and detail
9-10 century AD - courtesy Milwaukee
Public Museum