The Arts and Crafts of Syria and Egypt from the Ayyubids to World War I: Collected Essays (Islamic History and Thought) 9781463239008, 1463239009

Citation preview

The Arts and Crafts of Syria and Egypt fromthe Ayyubids to World War I

Islamic History and Thought

7 Series Editorial Board Peter Adamson Ahmad Khan Jack Tannous

Isabel Toral-Niehoff Manolis Ulbricht Jan Just Witkam

Advisory Editorial Board Binyamin Abrahamov Asad Q. Ahmed Mehmetcan Akpinar Abdulhadi Alajmi Mohammad-Ali Amir-Moezzi $UH]RX$]DG Massimo Campanini Godefroid de Callataÿ 0DULD&RQWHUQR Farhad Daftary Beatrice Gruendler

:DHO+DOODT Konrad Hirschler James Howard-Johnston Maher Jarrar Marcus Milwright Harry Munt Gabriel Said Reynolds Walid A. Saleh Jens Scheiner Delfina Serrano Georges Tamer

,VODPLF +LVWRU\ DQG 7KRXJKW provides a platform for scholarly research on any geographic area within the expansive Islamic world, stretching from the Mediterranean to China, and dated to any period from the eve of Islam until the early modern era. This series contains original monographs, translations (Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Greek, and Latin) and edited volumes.

The Arts and Crafts of Syria and Egypt fromthe Ayyubids to World War I

Collected Essays

Marcus Milwright

gp 2018

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2018 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC.

‫ܗ‬

1

2018

ISBN 978-1-4632-3900-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v List of Illustrations............................................................................................................. vii Acknowledgements........................................................................................................... xiii Notes for the reader .......................................................................................................... xv Text and image acknowledgements .............................................................................. xvii Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. Pottery in written sources of the Ayyubid-Mamluk period (c. 567–923/1171–1517) .......................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2: An inscribed pottery bowl of the Mamluk period .................................... 43 Chapter 3. Turquoise and black: Notes on an underglaze-painted stonepaste ware of the Mamluk period ..................................................................................... 53 Chapter 4. Written sources and the study of pottery in Ottoman Bilad al-Sham ....................................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 5. Imported pottery in Ottoman Bilad al-Sham ............................................ 91 Chapter 6. Trade and the Syrian hajj between the twelfth and the early twentieth centuries: Historical and archaeological perspectives ...................... 117 Chapter 7. On the date of Paul Kahle’s Egyptian shadow puppets ........................ 137 Chapter 8. Wood and woodworking in late Ottoman Damascus: An analysis of the 4ćPŠVDO-ʜinćʰćt al-Shćmiyya ......................................................................... 183 Chapter 9. Glass and glassworking in Damascus during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ................................................................................. 207 Chapter 10. Metalworking in Damascus at the end of the Ottoman period: An analysis of the 4ćPŠVDO-ʜinćʰćt al-Shćmiyya.................................................... 231 Chapter 11. The 4ćPŠVal-ʜinćʰćt al-Shćmiyya as a record of the leatherworking crafts of late Ottoman Damascus ......................................................... 247 Chapter 12. An Arabic description of the activities of antiques dealers in late Ottoman Damascus ................................................................................................ 271 Chapter 13. MARCUS MILWRIGHT AND EVANTHIA BABOULA. Damascene ‘trench art’: A note on the manufacture of Mamluk Revival metalwork in early twentieth-century Syria ............................................................................. 285 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 311 Index .................................................................................................................................. 351

v

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Colour Plates Plate 1 [chapter 3]. Sherds from underglaze-painted stonepaste bowls excavated at Karak. Photographs: Marcus Milwright. Plate 2 [chapter 7]. Leather puppet of a horse and groom with sections of coloured fabric. Bought by Paul Kahle in Menzaleh, 1909. Puppentheatermuseum, Munich: PS–98/46.1. Reproduced courtesy of Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Puppentheater/Schaustellerei. Plate 3 [chapter 7]. Leather puppet of horse and rider with sections of coloured fabric. Acquired by Paul Kahle in Menzaleh, 1909. Linden Museum: 84666. Reproduced courtesy of the Linden Museum, Stuttgart. Plate 4 [chapter 7]. Leather puppet of a boat with sailors and elite occupant. Acquired by Paul Kahle in Menzaleh, 1909. Courtesy of Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung Institut für Medienkultur und Theater, University of Cologne. Plate 5 [chapter 9]. Lamp, blown, enamelled, gilded. France, Paris. Philippe-Joseph Brocard (French, 1831–96), about 1870–80. H 31.7 cm, D. 24 cm. The Corning Museum of Glass (78.3.16, gift of Mr and Mrs Arthur Appleton). Plate 6 [chapter 9]. Carved plaster window inset with coloured glass. Foyer, Shangri La. Syria, Egypt or Turkey, nineteenth century. DDFIA: 46.2.1. Plate 7 [chapter 11]. Detail of a panel of a tent custom-made for the Cromwells and ordered from Asfar & Sarkis. Canvas with coloured leather and parchment. Syria, 1938. Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 73.22.a–j. Photograph: David Franzen. Plate 8 [chapter 11]. Leather-covered wooden tent poles. Syria, 1938. Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 73.22.a–j. Photograph: David Franzen. Figures Figure 2.1. Drawing of relief-moulded lead-glazed bowl from the collection of ʲ$EGDOODK%H\5LKDQL$IWHUDSKRWRJUDSKLQWKH'HSDUWPHQWRI$QWLTXLWLHVRI Jordan. Figure 2.2. Detail of the inscription band. Photograph courtesy of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Figure 2.3. Detail of the inscription band. Photograph courtesy of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.

vii

viii

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

Figure 2.4. Inscription band reconstructed from the photographs (not to scale). Drawing: Marcus Milwright. Figure 2.5. (a–c) Relief-moulded lead-glazed ware excavated at Karak. Photographs: Marcus Milwright. Figure 2.6. Schematic drawings of bands of repeat patterns on relief-moulded leadglazed wares (not to scale). After Milwright, ‘Modest luxuries,’ p. 5. Figure 2.7. Relief-moulded lead-glazed bowl in the Archaeological Museum, Amman, Jordan. Photograph courtesy of Judith McKenzie. Figure 2.8. Copper alloy bowl with engraved decoration. Probably fourteenth century. National Museum of Syria, Damascus. Photograph courtesy of James Allan. Figure 3.1. Turquoise and black ware sherds excavated at Karak, Jordan. Figure 3.2. Bowl in the citadel museum, Amman, Jordan. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 3.3. Map showing distribution of turquoise and black ware in Bilad al-Sham. Map created by Chris Mundigler. Figure 3.4. Base of fourteenth-century ‘Barracks ware’ sgraffito bowl. Excavated at Fustat. By permission of the Ashmolean Museum. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 5.1. Map showing the distribution of sites reporting imported pottery dating to period 1 (c.1450–1700). Map created by Chris Mundigler. Figure 5.2. Map showing the distribution of sites reporting imported pottery dating to period 2 (c.1700–1918). Map created by Chris Mundigler. Figure 6.1. Pressed clay tablets (Persian: mohr) in the Pa Minar Mosque in Zavareh, Iran, 2000. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 6.2. Karak seen from Marj al-Thaniyya, Jordan, 2005. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 6.3. Map showing the principal settlements of the Karak Plateau. Created by Chris Mundigler. Figure 6.4. Glazed and unglazed pottery of the twelfth–fourteenth centuries found in Karak castle, Jordan. Created by Marcus Milwright. Figure 6.5. Map showing the route of the Syrian hajj. Courtesy of Matt Brigs. Figure 6.6. Ottoman-SHULRGEULGJHDQGSDYHGURDGZLWK4DOʲDWDO-Hasa in the background, Jordan, 2005. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 6.7. Illustration of a shibriyya, or camel palanquin (centre of plate). The lower section depicts another type of litter known as a WDNKWUDZćQ$IWHUʲ$OL%H\$bbasi, The Travels of Ali Bey (1816), II: pl. LXIII.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ix

Figure 7.1. Drawing of a section from a relief-moulded unglazed canteen excavated in Salihiyya, Damascus (National Museum, Damascus). Early thirteenth century. Drawing: Marcus Milwright. Figure 7.2. a: Karaghiozis. b: Dionysios. c: Hadjavad (Hadjajaris). Puppets made of painted card and coloured textile in 2003–2005 by Michalis Moros, Nafplion, Greece. Collection of the author. Photographs: Iona Hübner. Figure 7.3. Egyptian leather puppet made by Hasan al-Qashshash in the late nineteenth century. After Kahle, ‘Schattenspielfiguren II,’ fig. 84 (present whereabouts unknown). Figure 7.4. Leather puppet of a boat with sailors and elite occupant. Acquired by Paul Kahle in Menzaleh, 1909. After Kahle, ‘Schattenspielfiguren II,’ fig. 45. Figure 7.5. Portrait of sultan Tumanbay II in Paolo Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1575), p. 225. Reproduced courtesy of the Syndics of the University Library, Cambridge. Figure 7.6. a) Leather puppet of elephant and musicians. Acquired by Paul Kahle in Menzaleh, 1909. After Kahle, ‘Arabic shadow play in Medieval Egypt’ (present whereabouts unknown); b) Diagram of the blazon represented on the Menzaleh puppets. Figure 7.7. Schematic drawings of repeat patterns found on the Menzaleh puppets now in the Linden Museum, Stuttgart and the Puppentheatermuseum in Munich (not to scale). Figure 7.8. Ceramic tobacco pipes excavated in Jerusalem during the excavations by Kathleen Kenyon. Eighteenth century. Photographs courtesy of Kay Prag. Figure 7.9. Engraving of a Middle Eastern water pipe in Johannes Neander, Tabacologia medico-cheirurgico pharmaceutica (1622). Reproduced courtesy of the University Library, Leiden. Figure 7.10.a & b. Simplified diagram of the fragment of a leather puppets decorated with blazons. Bought by Paul Kahle in Menzaleh, 1909. After Kahle, ‘Schattenspielfiguren I.’ Figure 7.11. Puppet of a Coptic priest. Courtesy of the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung Institut für Medienkultur und Theater, University of Cologne. Figure 8.1. Constructing wooden boats, Arwad island, Syria. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 8.2. Wooden balcony in a Damascus hotel, probably early twentienth century. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 8.3. The forming of bricks using a wooden matrix, Hiraqla, Syria, 2000. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 8.4. Stereoscopic photograph of mother-of-pearl workers in Bethlehem, 1900–20. Photographic Department, American Colony, Jerusalem. G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.: LC–DIG–matpc–07583.

x

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

Figure 8.5. Stereoscopic photograph of wood-turners in Damascus, c. 1900. Photographic Department, American Colony, Jerusalem. G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.: LC–DIG–matpc–01252. Figure 8.6. Stereoscopic photograph of clog maker in Damascus, c. 1900. Photographic Department, American Colony, Jerusalem. G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.: LC–DIG–matpc–01251. Figure 8.7. Stereoscopic photograph entitled, ‘Making the beautiful inlaid pearl work of the Orient, Damascus.’ William H. Rau, 1903. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.: LC–USZ62–73947. Figure 8.8. Workshop in the Old Town of Damascus engaged in the production of inlaid wooden furniture, 2010. Photograph: Stephen McPhillips. Figure 8.9. Using a stencil as a guide for carving of sections of furniture (in preparation for the addition of bone and mother-of-pearl inlay). Photograph: Stephen McPhillips. Figure 9.1. Products made by the tinners of Antioch in the early twentieth century. After Pierre Bazantay, Enquête sur l’artisanat à Antioche, 1936, pl. 33. Figure 9.2. Hanging lamp, green glass. Shangri La. Syria, late nineteenth century. DDFIA: 47.130. Figure 9.3. Hanging lamp with acid-etched decoration and gilding. Shangri La, on loan to the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Syria, nineteenth century. DDFIA: 47.132. Figure 9.4. Acid-etched amber glass bottle, Shangri La. Syria, nineteenth century. DDFIA: 47.11. Figure 9.5. Cupboard door in the ‘Syrian Room,’ Shangri La. Carved and gilded wood with inset mirrors. Syria, c. 1840–60. DDFIA: 64.9.2. Figure 10.1. Beating a large copper vessel in the bazaar of the Maydan-i Shah, Isfahan, 2000. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 10.2. a) Copper founder joining mould halves at Shiraz. After Wulff 1966, fig. 12. Photograph: Hans Wulff. Reproduced by permission of MIT Press; b) Copper founder pouring metal into the moulds, Shiraz. After Wulff 1966, fig. 13. Photograph: Hans Wulff. Reproduced by permission of MIT Press. Figure 10.3. Two-part mould for casting bells from a workshop near Bikfaya, Lebanon, 2001. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 10.4. Chasing a copper bowl set into a container of pitch, Bukhara, 1998. Photograph: Astri Wright. Figure 11.1. Photograph of a water-skin tannery near Hebron, c. 1900–20. Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division: LC–M32–S1334–x.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

xi

Figure 11.2. Stereoscopic photograph of tanners cleaning hides, Jaffa, c. 1900–20. Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division: LC–M33–B227. Figure 11.3. Stereoscopic photograph of the shop of an inlaid clog maker in Damascus, c. 1900–20. Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division: LC–M32–553. Figure 11.4.a & b. View and detail of a wooden clog inlaid with mother-of-pearl and strips of tin, also with a strap made from leather, velvet, silver, and brass rivets. Syria (Damascus), nineteenth or early twentieth century. Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 67.25. Photograph: David Franzen. Figure 12.1. Stereoscopic photograph of an antiquities dealer in Damascus, c. 1900. Photographic Department, American Colony, Jerusalem. G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.: LC–DIG–matpc–01159. Figure 13.1. Brass pyxis inlaid in silver and copper, Damascus, early twentieth century. Private collection, Victoria. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.2. Brass pyxis. View of the lid. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.3. Brass pyxis. View of base. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.4. Brass pyxis. Detail of cartouche with inscription. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.5. Brass pyxis. Detail of cartouche with inscription. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.6. Brass pyxis. Detail of cartouche with inscription. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.7. Brass pyxis. Detail of vegetal design. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.8. World War I Artillery shell casing. Height: 188mm, diameter 87mm. Courtesy of the Old Fire Engine Restaurant, Ely, UK. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.9. Inlaid brass cabinet (NXUVĪ) after an original made for sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun in 728/1328. Egypt, c. 1890–1900. Reproduced by permission of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawaii. 54.136.1. Figure 13.10. View (a) and detail (b) of a beaten copper jug with chased decoration. Egypt or Syria, early twentieth century. Height: 172mm; diameter at base: 123mm. Collection of the authors. Photograph: Marcus Milwright. Figure 13.11. View (a) and detail (b) of a brass artillery shell casing decorated with chased and punched decoration. Damascus, 1919. Private collection. Photograph: Moya Carey.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the editorial board of the Islamic History and Thought series of Gorgias Press for the opportunity to republish in an updated form a set of article and chapters dealing with the arts and crafts of Egypt and Greater Syria. Adam Walker kindly suggested this project, and I would like to express my appreciation for his encouragement and advice over the last two years. Thanks also to Melonie Schmierer-Lee for her help in the latter stages of the process. The publishers of the original articles and chapters are acknowledged in the footnotes, but mention should be made of individuals who have helped in obtaining the necessary permissions: Nadine Méouchy, Kazumi Oguchi, Emma Lockwood, Rick Price, Graham Philip, Linda Hulin, Paul Peeters, Gülrü NeçipRüOX+DQDGLDO-Taher, Elizabeth Gant, Jehad Haroun, Nora Probst, Suzanne Rebillard, Sarah Faulks, Venetia Porter, Pamela Quick, John Frankhuizen, Domniki Papadimitriou, Katja Scharff, Leslee Michelsen, and Bethany Bannister-Andrews. Dana Sajdi graciously shared with me her expertise on the literary and intellectual life of Ottoman Damascus. I also acknowledge with gratitude the generous and wonderful people who I have encountered during periods of fieldwork in Syria and Jordan. It is these human interactions that ultimately give meaning to historical and archaeological research. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to my family, Eva, Loukas, and Clio, for their love and support.

xiii

NOTES FOR THE READER The chapters in this volume were first published in a range of books and journals. In order to make the chapters more consistent I have standardised the transliteration of Arabic, spelling (British rather than American English), italicisation, citation system, and footnoting. The pagination of the original publications has been marked into the texts of the chapters enclosed in square brackets. In places where the numbering in square brackets is not sequential (i.e. missing one or more pages) it is either because the pages of the original publication contained only figures/ photographic plates or because a section of the original text has been excised. The reasons for these excisions are discussed in the introduction. On occasions I have added new illustrations to the original publications. Some maps have been replaced and a few photographs have been cut where it has proved difficult to obtain permission to reproduce them again. I have taken the opportunity to update the material in the footnotes and, where necessary, correct erroneous information. The system for the transliteration of Arabic in this volume follows that of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Personal names and toponyms are, however, given without the dotted consonants and the macrons over the long vowels. ‘Ayns (ʲ) and hamzas (ʱ) have been maintained in these cases. Arabic words that are in use in English (such as hajj and mihrab) are left unitalicised. Towns, cities and archaeological sites are always given in the form they are best known in English language publications (Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, Cairo, Aleppo, and so on). Unless stated otherwise, the dates are given according to the Common Era. +LMUĪand Common Era are given together for objects or buildings carrying dates.

xv

TEXT AND IMAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Chapter 1. Reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2. Reproduced by permission of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Chapters 3 & 12. Reproduced by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Chapter 4. Reproduced by permission of the editorial board of al-Rafidan and the Institute for Cultural Studies of Ancient Iraq, Kokushikan University, Tokyo. Chapter 5. Reproduced by permission of Peeters Publishers. Chapter 6. Reproduced by permission of the British Museum Press. Chapter 7. Reproduced by permission of Muqarnas and E. J. Brill. Chapter 8. Reproduced by permission of the Presses de l’Institut Français du Proche-Orient, Damascus and Beirut. Chapter 9. Reproduced by permission of The Corning Museum of Glass. Chapter 10. Reproduced by permission of I. B. Tauris. Chapter 13. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis. Colour plate 2. Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Puppentheater/Schaustellerei. Colour plate 3. Linden Museum Stuttgart. Colour plate 4. Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung Institut für Medienkultur und Theater, University of Cologne. Colour plate 5. The Corning Museum of Glass. Colour plates 6–8. Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawaii. Figures 2.1, 2.2, 2.3: Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Figure 2.6. Courtesy of James Allan. Figures 3.4, 5.1, 5.2, 6.5. Courtesy of Chris Mundigler. Figures 3.5. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Figure 7.7. Syndics of the University Library, Cambridge. Figure 7.10. Kay Prag. Figure 7.11. Reproduced courtesy of the University Library, Leiden. Figures 8.8, 8.9: Stephen McPhillips. Figures 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.7, 11.4a & b, 13.9: Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawai’i. Figure 10.2a & b: MIT Press. xvii

xviii

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

Figure 10.4: Astri Wright. Figure 13.8: Old Fire Engine House Restaurant, Ely, UK. Figure 13.11. Moya Carey.

INTRODUCTION This book brings together articles and chapters published over a period of nearly two decades. All of these studies engage with the material culture of the Islamic Middle East, making use of archaeological evidence, objects in museum and private collections, photographs, and primary written sources. While the approaches taken differ from one to the next, and the sources of information vary in each case, the following chapters share a common interest in the reconstruction of the social, cultural, and economic history of the Middle East. Furthermore, the chapters are informed by a conviction that the detailed analysis of material culture – in other words, the objects made and consumed by a given society – provides insights into human activity that are not always available through the contemporary written record. This material record may on occasion diverge from the reconstruction of past times offered by the analysis of texts. Alternatively, the analysis of objects and their distribution, spatial and chronological, can offer evidence that reinforces or augments conventional historical narratives (the issues raised by the integration of textual and physical evidence are reviewed in more detail in the next section of the introduction). Although the title of this book employs the terms, ‘arts’ and ‘crafts,’ it should be admitted that no absolute distinction is made between them in the following chapters. The term ‘material culture’ already mentioned, is often employed by archaeologists and others as a means to encompass both those objects that are held to have notable aesthetic characteristics (and were recognised as such at the time they were made as well as in a contemporary context) and those that are largely utilitarian in character. It has often been noted that pre-modern Islamic societies did not tend to draw explicit boundaries between what art historians might call ‘fine art’ and ‘craft,’ but there is, at least, a sense that some class of artefacts could be admired for factors including: the skill with which they were made; the cost and perceived rarity of the materials from which they were constructed; the beauty of their appearance; and their capacity to communicate some sort of external meaning to the intended audience. 1 Many of these characteristics were also valued by observers from other On these issues, see: Valérie Gonzalez, Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architecture (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001); Oliver Leaman, Islamic Aesthetics: An Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004); Jamal Elias, Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2012; Adam Mestyan, ‘Arabic lexicography and European aesthetics: The origins of fann,’ Muqarnas 28 1

1

2

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

cultures, as is powerfully seen in the testimony of Medieval travellers to the Middle East (see below). It is also the case that the Islamic objects gracing museum displays around the world frequently combine beauty – in their forms and ornamentation – with functional qualities (storage vessels, cooking pots, lamps, clothing, and so on). The following chapters have relatively little to say about the art-historical issues of aesthetics and iconography. Indeed, discussion of the visual characteristics of, for example, glazed pottery is generally included for the purposes of establishing typologies. This exclusion of conventional art-historical method from the following chapters is not because I regard such issues as unimportant; rather, it is because the principal goal is to draw out the socio-economic information from objects. This can take the form of the contextualisation of restricted groups of closely related items (Chapters 2, 7, and 13) or the process of archaeological distribution analysis for larger assemblages of ceramics (Chapters 3, 5, and 6). For the latter particularly, the value of the resulting interpretations is contingent upon the scope of the available evidence, including considerations such as the geographical coverage of the excavated sites and the relative size of the data set for each class of object. Hence, objects with little or no aesthetic interest still have the potential to explicate mercantile networks, production practices, consumption, and social stratification. The same concerns are at work in the chapters devoted to pre-modern manufacturing practices (Chapters 6, 8–12). While it is certainly useful to be able to recover evidence relating to the design and production of well-known art forms such as decorated glass (Chapter 9) and inlaid metalwork (Chapter 10), an archaeological or ethnographic approach to material culture requires an equal attention to less conspicuous crafts operating in cities and rural areas. 2 As a result, the chapters devoted to craft activities include discussions of the processing of raw materials (for example, clay and leather) and the manufacture of mundane and functional objects. These are items that would seldom find their way into the displays in art museums or survey texts on Islamic art, 3 but were significant in the everyday lives of populations (2011): 69–100; Stephen Vernoit, ‘The visual arts in nineteenth-century Muslim thought,’ in Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Stephen Vernoit, eds, Islamic Art in the 19th Century: Tradition, Innovation, and Eclecticism, Islamic History and Civilization Studies and Texts 60 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 19–35. On the distinctions between art and craft, see Marcus Milwright, Islamic Arts and Crafts: An Anthology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), pp. 8–9. 2 Examples of the ethnographic study of traditional crafts include: Hans Wulff, The traditional Crafts of Persia: Their Development, Technology, and Influence on Eastern and Western Civilization (Cambridge MA and London: The MIT Press, 1966); Edward Ochsenschlager, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2004). 3 There are, however, collections with a more ethnographic character. See, for example, Johannes Kalter, Margareta Pavaloi, and Maria Zerrnickel, eds, The Arts and Crafts of Syria: Collection Antoine Touma and Linden-Museum Stuttgart (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992).

INTRODUCTION

3

living in urban and rural areas throughout the Middle East. Many crafts were interrelated within urban communities, providing a network of employment; the recovery of these networks contributes further to our understanding of socio-economic history, especially as it applies to non-elite groups. The following chapters concentrate on the regions of Egypt and Greater Syria. The latter, sometimes known by the Arabic title of %LOćGDO-6KćP, refers to the territories now covered by Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestine Authority. Greater Syria can also encompass parts of southern Anatolia (i.e. modern Turkey). What holds these areas together in historical terms is that they were administered for substantial periods from the city of Damascus. There are many phases of Islamic history in which Greater Syria was part of a larger empire, however. Egypt and Greater Syria present a wide array of environments from arid desert through to highly fertile regions such as the Nile Delta and the Jordan valley. Urban settlements range from major cities, like Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo through to provincial capitals and ports. While these were the most important centres for trade and manufacturing, there is also evidence for these activities in rural towns and villages. Additionally, nomadic communities (bedouin) played a significant role in the economic life of these regions. 4 The studies in this volume cover a wide chronological scope, from the late twelfth to the early twentieth centuries. The three major dynastic phases represented in these studies are those of the Ayyubid (in Egypt, 1171–1250; in Syria, 1174– 1260), Mamluk (in Egypt, 1250–1517; in Syria, 1260–1516) and Ottoman sultanates (in Egypt, 1517–1867 [with interruptions]; in Syria, 1516–1918). Chapter 13 does also address the situation in Greater Syria during and immediately after World War I (1914–18). Some comments are made about other dynasties and events, including the Crusader polities of Greater Syria (controlling various territories between 1098 and 1291), the Zangids (1127–1250), the Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt and Syria (1798–  DQG WKH UXOH RI 0XKDPPDG ʲ$OL LQ (J\SW –48). This long time period was marked by both phases of disruption and prosperity, but at all times Egypt and Greater Syria remained connected to a larger mercantile network that stretched from Europe to Southeast Asia. 5 Evidence of these international contacts is available both in the archaeological record and primary texts. Arthur S. Tritton, ‘The tribes of Syria in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 12.3/4 (1948): 567–73; Mustafa Hiyari, ‘The origins of the development of the amirate of the Arabs during the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975): 509– 24. Also contributions in: Ofer Bar-Yosef and Anatolii Khazanov, eds, Pastoralism in the Levant. Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives. Monographs in World Archaeology 10 (Madison Wi.: Prehistory Press, 1992). 5 Eliyahu Ashtor, Levant Trade in the late Middle Ages (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983); Janet Abu Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). For additional archival sources on Mediterranean commerce, see Robert Lopez and Irving Raymond, trans., Medieval Trade in the 4

4

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

The archaeological perspectives adopted in many of the following studies demonstrate, however, that material culture follows lines of evolution that are not necessarily tied directly to political history. In other words, there is no reason to assume that events, such the transition from one dynasty to another, will have an observable impact on the manufacture of objects, the scope of trading networks, or patterns of consumption. 6 Partly this can be explained by the innate conservatism of many crafts. Changes certainly do occur, but these may be shaped by diverse phenomena ranging from shifts in international trade (such as the ‘Pax Mongolica’ that was established in the decades after the Mongol conquests 7) to the emergence of new commodities (for example, the introduction into Middle Eastern societies of coffee and tobacco). 8 Warfare, natural disasters, and the Black Death all affected those who made, exchanged and consumed objects, though these factors are not always readily observable in the material culture recovered from excavations. 9 The study of material culture allows the researcher to look at the consumption of goods across all strata of society. Where primary texts usually represent the opinions and viewpoints of the scholarly, political, and even mercantile elites, the analysis of objects and their archaeological distribution can allow insights into the larger world of non-literate populations of urban and rural areas. Excavations have demonstrated that cheap utilitarian ceramics appear on elite sites in association with luxury goods, while, conversely, the most expensive imported wares, such as Chinese stonewares and porcelains, have been recovered from houses associated with

Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents, new edition with introduction and bibliography by Olivia Constable (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 6 William Adams et al., ‘On the argument from ceramics to history: A challenge based on evidence from Medieval Nubia (with comments and reply),’ Current Anthropology 20.4 (1979): 727–44. Also comments in Jeremy Johns, ‘The rise of Middle Islamic hand-made geometrically-painted ware in Bilad al-Sham (11th–13th centuries A.D.),’ in Roland-Pierre Gayraud, ed., Colloque international d’archéologie islamique, IFAO, Le Caire, 3–7 février 1993, Textes arabes et études islamiques 36 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1998), pp. 65–93. 7 For international trade in this period, see Abu Lughod, Before European Hegemony. Also comments in Thomas Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 8 For a brief discussion of the importance of these commodities in Islamic archaeology, see Marcus Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology, New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), pp. 177–82. 9 For a discussion of long-term processes in Jordan, see: Jeremy Johns, ‘The longue durée: State and settlement strategies in southern Transjordan across the Islamic centuries,’ in Eugene Rogan and Tariq Tell, eds, Village, Steppe and State. The Social Origins of Modern Jordan (London and New York: British Academic Press, 1995), pp. 1–31.

INTRODUCTION

5

poorer inhabitants of cities. 10 This fluidity is also found in other dimensions of social life; for example, shadow theatre is usually characterised as a form of popular entertainment – the stuff of taverns and coffee houses – but puppet troupes were also patronised by amirs and sultans. 11 Thus, popular culture was not the sole preserve of non-elite groups, 12 and our reconstructions of social formations need to allow for the mobility of objects, craft activities, and performative arts.

SOURCES When they were first published several of the chapters contained in this volume included critical evaluations of the key sources – textual, archaeological and arthistorical – employed in the analyses of economic, technological and cultural topics. Since there were significant areas of overlap between these publications it makes sense to integrate all of this information into one section in the introduction to the book. My thinking on some of these sources has changed over time, and I have also benefited from the insights of other scholars from the fields of Islamic art history, archaeology and social history. In the following paragraphs introductory comments are made about the main types of primary sources, weighing their inherent limitations against their potential for illuminating the past. Archaeological data are utilised extensively in the following chapters. It is certainly the case that scholars are well provided with published evidence from excavations and field surveys conducted in Greater Syria, particularly in the southern regions now occupied by Jordan, Israel and the Palestine Authority. 13 Although objects and buildings of the Islamic centuries were uncovered and recorded in archaeological projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the pace of recovery and publication has greatly increased in more recent times. Not only are For example, Wladislaw Kubiak and George Scanlon, Fustat Expedition Final report. Vol. 2; Fustat–C, American Research Center in Egypt Reports 2 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1989), pp. 38–39. For a summary of this, and other significant urban excavations, see Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology, pp. 83–90. On the material culture of Ottoman Damascus, see James Grehan, Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in eighteenth-century Damascus (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2007). 11 See references collected in Chapter 7 of this volume. 12 For example, see Boaz Shoshan, Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 13 On the archaeology of Late Antique and early Islamic Syria, see Alan Walmsley, Early Islamic Syria, an archaeological Assessment (London: Duckworth, 2007). For a brief survey of the Islamic period, see Marcus Milwright, ‘Greater Syria: Islamic Archaeology,’ in Claire Smith, ed., Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (New York: Springer, 2014), V: 3111–19. For ceramics recovered from excavations and surveys, see: Cristina Tonghini and Ernst Grube, ‘Towards a history of Syrian pottery before 1500,’ Islamic Art 3 (1989): 59–93; Marcus Milwright, ‘Pottery of Bilad al-Sham in the Ottoman period: A review of the archaeological evidence,’ Levant 32 (2000); 189–208; Milwright, ‘Gazetteer of archaeological sites in the Levant reporting pottery of the Middle Islamic period (ca. 1100–1600 C.E.),’ Islamic Art 5 (2001): 3–39. 10

6

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

there many publications, but these studies also cover a wide range of settlement types, from urban centres to smaller towns and villages. Nomadic populations are also represented in some regional surveys. The coverage for the regions of modern Syria and Lebanon is patchier, though many significant towns and cities have been subjected to archaeological research. There have also been notable multi-period surveys, particularly in northern Syria and along the Euphrates river. 14 While the uneven density of projects across Greater Syria can lead to a skewing of the evidence toward those areas where activity has been most intense, the relative abundance of data allows archaeologists to draw larger inferences about the social and economic characteristics of the region. One method used in these reconstructions is the creation of distribution patterns for selected groups of objects, particularly ceramic wares. Clearly this approach relies on the existence of accurate chronological parameters for a given class of object. These parameters are established, in the case of ceramics, by correlating the finds from stratigraphic excavation of numerous sites. This requires a critical evaluation of the methodologies employed on individual excavations, as well as the minimum size of the sample (of published excavations) required to form meaningful conclusions. 15 It should be acknowledged, however, that excavations provide evidence of variable quality, and it was not uncommon for projects to privilege the finds from more ancient strata, giving less attention to occupation levels dating after the Islamic conquests. This is a problem for several periods, though it is particularly acute for the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. 16 While the understanding of these centuries (largely representing the period of Ottoman rule) has improved in the last three decades, it is still a period about which too little is known in archaeological terms. The uneven geographical coverage of excavations and surveys (see above) is a factor that should be acknowledged in the analysis of distribution patterns. For example: T. J. Wilkinson, ‘Water and human settlement in the Balikh valley, Syria: Investigations from 1992–1995,’ Journal of Field Archaeology 25.1 (1998): 63–87; Sophie Berthier, ed., Peuplement rural et aménagements hydroagricole dans la moyenne vallée de l’Euphrat, fin VIIIe–XIX siècle: Région de Deir ez Zor–Abu Kemal, Syrie: Mission Mésopotamie Syrienne, archéologie Islamique, 1986–1989 (Damascus: Institut Français d’études arabes de Damas, 2001). 15 For example, the redating of ceramic types can have a radical impact of our understanding of occupation phases and settlement patterns. On this, see: Donald Whitcomb, ‘Khirbet el-Mafjar reconsidered: The ceramic evidence,’ Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 271 (August 1988): 51–67; Jodie Magness, The Archaeology of early Islamic Settlement in Palestine (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003); Gideon Avni, The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach, Oxford Studies in Byzantium (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 16 Sources on this, see: Uzi Baram, ‘Entangled objects from the Palestinian past: Archaeological perspectives for the Ottoman period, 1500–1900,’ in Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll, eds, A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking new Ground, Contributions to Global Historical Archaeology. New York and Boston: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2000), pp. 137–59; Milwright, ‘Pottery of Bilad al-Sham.’ 14

INTRODUCTION

7

The limitations outlined above should not be minimised, but it is hoped that the following chapters demonstrate some of the ways in which archaeology, and particularly the study of ceramics, can provide insights into social and economic phenomena occurring over decades or even centuries in the Middle East. It is argued, however, that these data gain greater weight when correlated with contemporary primary sources. This integrated approach fits into the general category of ‘Historical Archaeology,’ though it should be noted that it has long been the practice of Islamic archaeologists and art historians to employ pre-modern texts in the interpretation of material and visual culture. 17 Archaeologists working in Greater Syria have made imaginative use of chronicles, geographical texts, cadastral records (sing. daftar), charitable bequests (sing. waqfiyya), and other types of document in their research. 18 A consistent challenge in all these studies, however, is to find explanations for the discrepancies, whether temporal or in terms of content, between the archaeological and textual evidence. Where they cannot be easily reconciled, one is left to question which type of evidence best reflects past realities. Sometimes it is possible to reframe this question, however, through a consideration of the different genres of writing and the nature of the information they are designed to convey. In other words, a cadastral record can be said to represent land, property, people, and natural resources in different ways to, for example, a chronicle. These varying perspectives will also find different points of correlation with the material record of excavations and surveys. Less attention has been paid in the following chapters to objects held in museums and private collections. Clearly, there is value in studying complete, or relatively complete objects that preserve complex ornamental programs or dedicatory inscriptions. These text bands may carry tangible information, including dates, places of manufacture, and the names of patrons, recipients, and artisans. 19 While inscriptions still need to be interpreted, they represent crucial primary documentation that often differs in character and content from archival sources and other types of contemporary writing. Inscriptions on objects can also supplement the understanding of more See sources listed in Chapter 5. For example, Johns, ‘The longue durée’; Bethany Walker, Jordan in the late Middle Ages: Transformation of the Mamluk Frontier (Chicago: Middle East Documentation Center, University of Chicago, 2011). For comparable approaches from Ottoman Greece, see: Fariba Zarinebaf, John Bennet and Jack Davis, A historical and economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: The southwestern Morea in the 18th Century, Hesperia Supplement 34 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Susan Sutton, ed., Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy, and Land Use in the Southern Argolid since 1700 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). 19 On these issues, see: Sheila Blair, Islamic Inscriptions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, ‘Signatures on works of Islamic art and architecture,’ Damaszener Mitteilungen 11 (1999 [2001]): 49–66. Ruba Kana’an, ‘The de jure ‘artist’ of the Bobrinsky bucket: Production and patronage of metalwork in pre-Mongol Khurasan and Transoxiana,’ Islamic Law and Society 16.2 (2009): 175–201. 17 18

8

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

fragmentary materials recovered during excavations and field surveys. These qualities must be balanced, however, against the paucity of reliable provenance for many Middle Eastern objects in public and private collections. 20 Without records concerning find locations it is difficult to incorporate such objects into the chronological and spatial distribution patterns. As already noted, the following chapters make extensive use of primary sources in the analysis of archaeological artefacts and the practices followed by traditional crafts. While it is not feasible to describe each of these sources, some comments can be made concerning the main genres of writing, particularly relating to their potential as sources on material culture between the late twelfth and the early twentieth centuries. Arabic chronicles are, of course, a vital source for the reconstruction of political and economic history, but they provide fewer insights into other aspects of the past in regions such as Greater Syria and Egypt. 21 Written from the perspective of an urban, literate elite, chronicles seldom show much interest in manufactured items or the people who made them. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that we possess very little biographical information about artisans in these regions prior to the nineteenth century. The exceptions to this general rule tend to be calligraphers, architects, and engineers, though even here the information is relatively sparse. 22 While historical works and biographical dictionaries (ʞDEDTćW) contain relatively little about the crafts, it is possible to find more material in geographical encyclopaedias, topographic histories, and the accounts of travellers, both Muslim and nonMuslim, to the Middle East. The first of these tends to provide brief accounts of the most important products of given towns or cities. The same idea is followed in the second category, though the information is more fine-grained, identifying craft speOn issues of provenance, scholarship and the market in Islamic objects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see: Stephen Vernoit, ed., Discovering Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Collecting, 1850–1950 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000); Marilyn JenkinsMadina, Raqqa revisited: Ceramics of Ayyubid Syria (New Haven and London: Yale University Press and Metropolitan Museum, 2006), pp. 11–19. On the role of scientific analysis in the dating and provenance of Islamic pottery, see Robert Mason, Shine like the Sun: Lustre and associated Pottery from the Medieval Middle East, Bibliotheca Iranica: Islamic Art and Architecture Series 12 (Costa Mesa CA and Toronto: Mazda Publishers and Royal Ontario Museum, 2004). 21 For a survey of the main genres of Islamic historical writing, see Chase Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 22 For examples from biographical sources, see: Milwright, Islamic Arts and Crafts, pp. 49–56 et passim. Also David James, 4XUʯćQVRIWKH0DPOŠNV (London: Alexandria Press in association with Thames and Hudson, 1988), pp. 34–36, 68–69, 150, 198–99. For examples of the recovery of ‘biographies’ through analysis of inscriptions, see: Marilyn Jenkins, ‘Mamluk underglaze-painted pottery: Foundations for future study’, Muqarnas 2 (1984): 95–114; James Allan, ‘Muhammad ibn al-Zain: Craftsman in cups, thrones and window grilles?’ Levant 28 (1996): 189–201. 20

INTRODUCTION

9

cialisms according to urban localities or streets. 23 These studies often provide perspectives on the spatial distribution of diverse crafts within the urban space, though they generally lack chronological markers that allow researchers to establish the ebb and flow of specific activities over time. The testimony of pre-modern travellers is usually less systematic, though it can offer alternative viewpoints on such issues as material culture and manufacturing. 24 It is seldom the case, however, that travellers focused their attention on the crafts, though one can point to exceptions, including the enthusiastic listing of the goods in the VŠTs of Damascus by Italian visitors to the city in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 25 Travel writing is not a monolithic category, and it is possible to detect shifts in the presentation of information through the Ottoman period. For example, the Turkish traveller, Evliya Çelebi (d. c. 1683) writes in a manner that accords with many earlier conventions of Islamic travel literature, but is more attentive than his predecessors to economic issues and the manufacture of objects. This latter interest may be partially explained by the fact that his father was an imperial goldsmith (quyumbaÿï). 26 A significant change occurs in the late eighteenth century, becoming much more prevalent in the nineteenth: this is the emergence of travel accounts by Europeans and North Americans that record information in manner relating more closely to the modern disciplines of anthropology, ethnography, and archaeology. By the latter part of the nineteenth century one also has academic articles that present detailed analyses of traditional manufacturing, such as Gatt’s study of the pottery workshops operating in Gaza in the 1880s. 27 While these writings represent a valuable resource for the material culture of this period, they need to be read with

For examples of the exploitation of information in Egyptian and Syrian topographic histories, see: 1LNLWD (OLVVÆHII o&RUSRUDWLRQV GH 'DPDV VRXV 1ŠU DO–'ĪQ 0DWÆULDX[ SRXU une topographie économique de Damas au XIIe siècle,’ Arabica 3 (1956): 61–79; Sophie Denoix, 'ÆFULUH OH &DLUH )XVʞćʞ-0LʜU GpDSUÅV ,EQ 'XTPćT HW 0DTUĪ]Ī /pKLVWRLUH GpXQH SDUWLH GH OD ville d’après deux historiens égyptiens des XIVe–Xve siècles, Études urbaines 3 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1992). 24 On the potential of travel accounts as a source on the crafts of the Islamic world, see Marcus Milwright, ‘The traditional crafts of the Middle East and Central Asia in the writings of European and North American travellers,’ in Evanthia Baboula and Leslie Jessop, eds, Essays in Honour of Erica Dodd (Leiden and Boston: Brill, forthcoming). 25 For Simone Sigoli’s account, see Theophilus Bellorini and Eugene Hoade, trans., Visit to the Holy Places of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1384 by Frescobaldi, Gucci & Sigoli, Publications of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 6 (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1948), pp. 182–83. 26 For his biography, see https://ottomanhistorians.uchicago.edu/en/historian/evliyacelebi (last consulted: 26 November 2017). 27 G. Gatt, ‘Industrielles aus Gaza,’ Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 8 (1885): 59– 79. See also Lydia Einsler, ‘Das Töpferhandwerk bei den Bauernfrauen von Ramallah und Umgegend,’ Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 37 (1914): 249–60. 23

10

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

an awareness of potential biases, including ‘Orientalist’ perceptions of the stagnation and decline. 28 Economic geographies of the Middle East are another type of source that becomes significant in the nineteenth century. Notable examples dealing with the economy of Greater Syria are those written by Sir John Bowring (d. 1872), Henri Guys (d. 1878), and Vital-Casimir Cuinet (d. 1896), 29 and these are all employed later in the book. Works of this nature provide the reader with statistical breakdowns and brief descriptions of manufacturing, cultivation, trade and other activities of economic value, though they seldom offer much detail on individual activities in specific settlements and regions. In this respect they represent a similar type of data to the tax surveys (daftars), produced periodically by the Ottoman authorities in the region. For example, daftars were produced for parts of Jordan during the sixteenth century, and these have been used in the reconstruction of rural settlement patterns. 30 Manufacturing and trade can also be tracked in a variety of other economic documents. Reference is made in the following chapters to those written by four-

For contrasting views on the implications of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Orientalist scholarship, see: Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1994); Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies (London: Penguin Books, 2007). For more on anthropology and archaeology, see: Talal Asad, ‘Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter’, in Gerrit Huizer and Bruce Mannheim, eds, The Politics of Anthropology: From Colonialism and Sexism to a View from Below, World Anthropology (The Hague: De Gruyter, 1979), pp. 85–96; Stephen Vernoit, ‘The rise of Islamic archaeology,’ Muqarnas 14 (1997), pp. 1–10; Daniel Hull, ‘Orientalism: Islamic archaeology and its colonial context,’ in Claire Smith, ed., Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology (New York: Springer, 2014), pp. 5614–22. 29 The works used most extensively in this volume are: John Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1840. Reprinted: New York: Arno Press, 1973); Henri Guys Beyrouth et le Liban. Relation d’un séjour de plusieurs années dans ce pays, 2 vols (Paris: W. Remquet and Co., 1850); Vital-Casimir Cuinet, Syrie, Liban et Palestine. Géographique, administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonnée (Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1896). 30 For editions and Arabic translations, see: Muhammad Adnan Bakhit and Noufan Raja Hmoud’s, The detailed Defter of al-/DMMŠQ Tapu Defteri no. 181 (1005 A.H./1596 A.D.). A Study, Edition and Translation of the Text (Amman: Publications of the University of Jordan, 1989); 7KH GHWDLOHG 'HIWHU RI /LZćʯ ʰ$MOŠQ 'LVWULFW RI ʰ$MOŠQ  7DSX 'HIWHUL QR  ,VWDQEXO $ Study, Edition and Translation of the Text (Amman: Publications of the University of Jordan, 1989); 7KH GHWDLOHG 'HIWHU RI /LZćʯ ʰ$MOŠQ WKH 'LVWULFW RI ʰ$MOŠQ  7DSX 'HIWHUL QR  $QNDUD 1005 A.H./1596 A.D. A Study, Edition and Translation of the Text (Amman: Publications of the University of Jordan, 1981); 7KH0XIDVVDO'HIWHURI0DUM%DQLʰ$PUDQGLWV'HSHQGHQWVHQWUXVWHGWR Amir Tarabey, 945 A.H./1538 A.D. (Amman: Publications of the University of Jordan, 1989). For an English edition of the 1005/1596 daftar, see Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth, and Kamal Abdulfattah, Historical geography of Palestine, Transjordan and southern Syria in the late sixteenth Century (Erlangen: Palm und Enke, 1977). Also comments in Johns, ‘The longue durée.’ 28

INTRODUCTION

11

teenth-century Italian merchants such as Francisco Balducci Pegolotti. 31 Evidence concerning the trade in goods from Syria also appears in Frankish legal collections, such as the thirteenth-century Assises of Jerusalem. 32 Middle Eastern goods, including glazed ceramics and enamelled glass, appears in inventories of European nobles, while material culture is also a feature of mercantile contracts. 33 Sadly, few such records have survived from the Middle East. Economic information can also be derived from the lists of revenue-producing items (such as workshops) that appear in waqfiyyas drawn up for Muslim religious institutions (Chapter 1). One group of consular records relating to late Ottoman Syria has been exploited in this book (Chapter 5). This archive comprises economic reports and correspondence produced by the officials resident in the French consulates of the ports of the Syrian littoral. Among the tables of imports and exports are occasional references to pottery, though much greater attention is paid to high value commodities such as silk and metalwork. 34 The legal dimensions of craft and mercantile activities have been mentioned already, and there are several types of document that can help to illuminate past practices. The most pertinent in the present context are the manuals of market law (ʚLVED) produced during the medieval period. These works were penned by religious scholars (ʰXODPćʯ, sing.ʰćOLP), rather than artisans, and their concerns are with identifying unethical or illegal practices in the market place. As such, their representation of the crafts should not be taken at face value. ʙLVED manuals strive for an ideal template, and are not a reliable guide to the day-to-day realities of urban workshops. 35 The same can also be said of texts dealing with contract law, though there are times when the principles in these works are demonstrated in extant records Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, Pratica della mercatura, ed. A. Evans (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1936). 32 Jean d’Ibelin, Assises de Jérusalem: Tome deuxième, assises de la cour des bourgeoise, ed. Le Comte Beugnot, Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Lois II (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1843); Jean d’Ibelin, Le livres des assises, ed., Peter Edbury (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003). 33 See examples in Eliyahu Ashtor, Levant Trade in the late Middle Ages; Eliyahu Ashtor, Technology, Industry, and Trade: The Levant versus Europe, 1250–1500, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992); Marco Spallanzani, Ceramiche orientali a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Florence: Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, 1978). 34 This information is collected in: Adel Ismail, ed., Documents diplomatiques et consulaires relatifs à l’histoire du Liban et les pays du Proche-Orient du XVII siècle à nos jours, 49 vols (Beirut: Éditions des oeuvres politiques et historiques, 1975–93); Adel Ismail, ed., Documents diplomatiques et consulaires relatifs à l’histoire du Liban et des pays du Proche-Orient du XVII siècle à nos jours. Première partie: les sources françaises. Correspondance consulaire et commerciale, 6 vols (Beirut: Éditions des oeuvres politiques et historiques, 1982–93). 35 On the genre of ʚLVED and the interpretation of these texts, see Ahmad Ghabin, ʙLVED $UW DQG &UDIW LQ ,VODP, Arabisch-Islamische Welt in Tradition und Moderne (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009). Translations and editions of the ʚLVED manuals of Ibn Bassam, Ibn al-Ukhuwwa and al-Shayzari are cited in the following chapters, particularly Chapters 1 and 11. 31

12

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

made of actual disputes that occurred between patrons and craftsmen. Such disagreements could require the attention of the market inspector (PXʚWDVLE) and his deputies, the judge (TćʘĪ), and the head (usually known as the shaykh) of the affected guild (ʞDUĪTD or ʞćʯLID). 36 Several chapters focus on the evidence about craft activities in one Arabic text, composed in Damascus at the end of the Ottoman period. The Arabic title of this work is 4ćPŠVDO-ʜLQćʰćWDO-6KćPL\\D (Dictionary of Damascene Crafts), and was comSRVHG E\ WKUHH DXWKRUV 0XKDPPDG 6DʲLG DO-Qasimi (d. 1900), Jamal al-Din alQasimi (d. 1910), and Khalil al-ʲ$]PG 7KHZRUNZDVILUVWSXEOLVKHGLQ$rabic in 1960 under the title, Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, edited by Zafer alQasimi. 37 This valuable book offers the most comprehensive account of the crafts operating in the Syrian capital, with over four hundred chapters, each devoted to a single specialism. I am unaware of any comparable Middle Eastern text of this scope in Arabic or Persian written prior to World War I, the only broadly comparable book being the -XJKUćIL\ć-\L,VIDKćQ (Geography of Isfahan) by Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar. 38 Given the value of the 4ćPŠV DO-ʜLQćʰćW DO-6KćPL\\D (from now on referred to as the 4ćPŠV) for the study of traditional manufacturing practices, it is necessary to provide a critical evaluation of the authors, the text itself (content, arrangement, goals, and approach), and the historical context informing both the initial collection of information and the writing process. 7KH ILUVW WZR DXWKRUV 0XKDPPDG 6DʲLG DQG -DPDO DO-Din, are the most important in terms of framing the principal goals of the 4ćPŠV. As such, it is their biographies that require the greatest attention. Although he came from a relatively KXPEOHEDFNJURXQG0XKDPPDG6DʲLGDO-Qasimi rose to a position of some prominence in the religious and intellectual life of nineteenth-century Damascus. His father was al-Shaykh Qasim al-Hallaq (d. 1867), a barber who after the age of forty VRXJKWRXWDUHOLJLRXVHGXFDWLRQLQWKH6KDILʲLmadhhab. He went on to take the post of preacher (NKDʞĪE) in the Hassan and Sinaniyya mosques, also teaching in the latter. 0XKDPPDG6DʲLGUHFHLYHGKLVWUDLQLQJIURPKLVIDWKHUDQGODWHUWRRNRYHUWKHSRVWV )RUDQH[DPSOHRIWKLVVHH'URU=HʲHYLAn Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s, SUNY Series in Medieval Middle East History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 155–56. Reprinted in Milwright, Islamic Arts and Crafts, pp. 59–60. 37 0XKDPPDG6DʲLGDO-Qasimi, Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi and Khalil al-ʲ$]PDictionnaire des métiers damascains, Zafer al-Qasimi, ed., Le Monde d’Outre-Mer passé et présent. Deuxième série. Documents III, 2 volumes (Paris and Le Haye: Mouton and Co., 1960). For a detailed review of this publication, see Dominique Chevallier, ‘A Damas, production et société à la fin du XIXe siècle,’ Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 19.5 (September-October 1964): 966–72. My thanks also to Dana Sajdi for sharing her perspectives on the character and aims of the 4ćPŠV. 38 Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar, -XJKUćIL\ć-\L,VIDKćQ, ed. M. Sittuda (Tehran, 1963). On this work, see also: Willem Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama in nineteenth-century Iran (Washington DC: Mage Publishers, 2009); Willem Floor, ‘The wood-working craft and its products in Iran,’ Muqarnas 23 (2006): 159–89. 36

INTRODUCTION

13

LQWKHWZRPRVTXHV/LNHKLVIDWKHU0XKDPPDG6DʲLGZURWHSRHWU\DOVRSURGXFLQJ three books (the most substantial of which is the 4ćPŠV). He was active in the intellectual and cultural life of the city, organising evening salons in which ideas of the day were discussed. Another of his notable achievements was the creation of an edition of a popular history written by the eighteenth-century barber, Ibn Budayr. This work was finally published in 1959. 39 In her perceptive study of Ibn Budayr and his writing, Dana Sajdi suggests OLQNV EHWZHHQ 0XKDPPDG 6DʲLGpV LQWHUHVW LQ WKH EDUEHUpV FKURQLFOH DQG Whe documenting of crafts in the 4ćPŠV. Detailed treatments of crafts did not constitute one of the usual literary genres tackled by members of the ʰXODPćʯ of this time, or indeed of earlier centuries. Sajdi acknowledges the plausible connection with the Salafist DJHQGDRI0XKDPPDG6DʲLGpVVRQVHHEHORZ EXWQRWHVWKDWWKHGHVLUHWRZULWHDQ ‘ethnographic’ examination of the skilled practitioners of Damascus could also reflect the status of the family, deriving from humble origins and occupying a middling status beneath that of the more prosperous and powerful elites. This interpreWDWLRQKDVPHULWWKRXJKDV6DMGLGHPRQVWUDWHV0XKDPPDG6DʲLGpVPRWLYDWLRQVPD\ have been more complex, particularly given his identification with the principles of al-1DKʘD, the drive for cultural and intellectual reform within the Arab-speaking ZRUOG 0XKDPPDG 6DʲLG ZDV HYLGHQWO\ D UHDGHU RI SULQW SXEOLFDWLRQV LQFOXGLQJ journals, and it might be through such means that the 4ćPŠV took on its encyclopaedic format as well as its interest in the economic dimensions of traditional manufacturing (and particularly the viability of certain specialisms in the face of competition or other changes in the marketplace). Zafer al-Qasimi, the editor of the 1960 edition, claims that the initial motivation for the 4ćPŠV was provided by Jamal al-Din in about 1890. 40 According to this account, Jamal al-Din encouraged his father to record the diverse crafts of his native FLW\0XKDPPDG6DʲLGDSSDUHQWO\GHYRWHGWLPHHDFKGD\XQWLOKLVGHDWKLQWR visit different parts of Damascus and its vicinity in order to record specific crafts. Jamal al-Din was concerned about the gradual disappearance of the traditional crafts, and even continued the research project after his father’s death. This phase of the collection and writing was done in collaboration with Khalil al-ʲ$]PKLVEURWher-in-law, and a member of one of the most prominent families in Damascus. He served in various administrative capacities during his career, including heading the office that conducted the economic census of Damascus and the surrounding areas. 41 Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), pp. 175–79. Also David Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 42–46). 40 Zafer al-Qasimi’s introduction in al-Qasimi, al-Qasimi and al-ʲ$]P Dictionnaire, I: 12–14 (French text). 41 For the biography of Khalil al-ʲ$]PVHHHGLWRUpVQRWHVLQDO-Qasimi, al-Qasimi and al-ʲ$]PDictionnaire, II: 208 (Arabic text). 39

14

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

Jamal al-Din’s commitment to the project should be understood in the light of his evolving political beliefs. He shared the same religious training as his father and even took over the appointment at the Sinaniyya following the father’s death. In the 1890s Jamal al-Din started diverge from his conservative intellectual background, adopting Salafism and supporting the reformist movement in Syria. These reformers, often known as Arabists, championed a revival of Arab culture and an increasing autonomy from central Ottoman rule. Jamal al-Din was also a proponent of the introduction of new technology into Islamic lands. 42 His political views led him to be persecuted by the authorities in Damascus. Not all the entries of the 4ćPŠV were completed, and it is not clear when work on the book ended. Louis Massignon (d. 1962) consulted copies of the book in 1919 in the Qasimi family library in Damascus, though he did not see an autograph manuscript. Zafer al-Qasimi claimed that the last date that work was done on the 4ćPŠV was 1906. The entries lack dates (and many probably represent observations done over a period of time), though there are some clues. For example, the entry devoted to shadow puppeteers (NDUDNŠ]ćWĪ) includes a substDQWLDOTXRWHIURP,EQʲ$UDELpVG 1240), )XWŠʚćWDO-Makkiyya. Jamal al-'LQKDGWKHRSSRUWXQLW\WRFRQVXOW,EQʲ$UDELpV work in 1906, and this may be the reason for including it in what is otherwise a description of the contemporary practices of puppeteers. 43 Another piece of chronological evidence is a reference to the completion of the Hijaz Railway from Damascus to Medina in 1908 (Chapter 6). Given that this entry on the muqawwim, or assessor of the hajj caravan, claims that this activity was no longer functioning, one may conclude that the writing was completed one or more years after the commencement of the rail service for pilgrims heading to the Holy Cities in 1908. The main part of the 4ćPŠV is arranged, as the title suggests, in alphabetic order according to the common title of the given craft itself. The book takes the broadest definition of craft (Arabic: ʜLQćʰD, though most often in the text the word ʚLUID is employed), encompassing not just the conventional aspects of making objects from organic and non-organic materials (weaving, metalwork, pottery, and so on), but also activities as diverse as farming, theatrical performance, geomancy, and midwifery. In other words, ʜLQćʰD and ʚLUIa can be understood to mean skills from which a person could expect to make all, or part of his or her living. This understanding is consistent with the way that the crafts are conceived in legal texts such as manuals of ʚLVED. 44 For a translation of one of Jamal al-Din’s works with commentary by David Commins, see Charles Kurzman, ed., Modernist Islam, 1840–1940: A Sourcebook (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 181–87. 43 This information appears in a letter cited by Commins, Islamic Reform, p. 112. 44 Cf. the listing of the crafts of urban centres in Ibn Khaldun’s, al-Muqaddima. See Franz Rosenthal, trans., The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Bollingen Series 43. Second edition with corrections (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), II: 347–48 (excerpt from ‘The Crafts are perfected only if there exists a large and perfect sedentary Civilization’); II: 286–87 (excerpt from ‘Sedentary culture in cities comes from dynasties. 42

INTRODUCTION

15

References to the guilds are notable by their absence in the entries in the 4ćPŠV. Guilds were, of course, the organising structures for the crafts in urban settings, and have been a preoccupation of social historians since the late nineteenth century. 45 These publications have tended to focus on the socio-economic and political roles performed by the guilds and their quasi-religious character. The hierarchy and elaborate rituals associated with the guilds of Damascus formed the subject of a scholarly study published in Arabic in 1885. 46 The decision to remove the guilds from the discussion of actual craft activities looks to be a deliberate one that placed the focus of attention on the manual labour and knowledge of the artisan. As noted above, this strategy could have complex origins, deriving in the somewhat different LQWHOOHFWXDO RXWORRNV RI 0XKDPPDG 6DʲLG DQG -DPDO DO-Din al-Qasimi. One can speculate whether the Salafist views of Jamal al-Din would have given him limited sympathy for the ritualistic character of guild life. Another important interest of the 4ćPŠV is the economic dimension of the crafts. Although the data on wages and prices are often disappointingly vague, the authors consistently reflect upon the capacity of a given ʚLUID to provide an income. These are given in rather generalised terms (‘low,’ ‘middling,’ and so on), and it is sometimes noted when a craft only provides a living wage on a seasonal basis. They are particularly sensitive to the issue of declining markets and competition from imported goods, often reflecting on the fact that few still practised a given craft or that Damascenes had shifted their taste to another product (such as the move from pipe smoking to the consumption of cigarettes; see Chapters 4 & 8). Another aspect of this economic focus is the awareness expressed in numerous entries that the decline or disappearance of one craft specialism could have an impact on others in the city and the surrounding area. Lastly, a few comments can be made about the character of the entries themselves. The authors were not practising artisans; this is reflected in the relative paucity of technical detail, except in cases where they summarise the content of interviews with practitioners of given crafts. The entries vary considerably in length and in the usefulness of the commentary. There are cases where digressions are made into poetry or legal questions, and there is some evidence (for example, the VX\ŠIĪ, or swordsmith; see Chapter 10) that the authors related out-of-date information withExamples include: Bernard Lewis, ‘Islamic guilds,’ The Economic History Review 8.1 (1937): 20–37; Gabriel Baer, Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times, Oriental Notes and Studies 8 (Jerusalem, The Israel Oriental Society, 1964); Mehdi Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life in the late Safavid Period: Contributions to the socio-economic History of Persia, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 65 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1982); André Raymond, ‘Guilds,’ Islamicus: The Encyclopaedia of Islam and the Muslim World. http://islamicus.org/guilds/ (last consulted: 27 April 2014). 46 Elias Qudsi, ‘Notice sur les corporations de Damas,’ Actes du sixième Congres International des Orientalistes (Leiden: Brill, 1885), II: 7–34. Translated by Yusuf Ibish as ‘Elias Qudsi’s sketch of the guilds of Damascus in the nineteenth century,’ Middle East Economic Papers (Beirut: American University of Beirut. Economic Research Institute, 1967): 41–62. 45

16

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

out making first-hand observations. More useful in the present context are the ubiquitous references to the objects made by those engaged in a different craft, along with the raw materials they required and the tools they employed. Much of this can be correlated with broadly contemporary photographic records from the city. Most important of all is the comprehensive nature of the text, allowing for comparisons to be made across crafts in the urban environment.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The chapters of this book have been arranged broadly into themes. The first five chapters are concerned with the study of the ceramics from the Ayyubid period to the early twentieth century. The main focus of study is Greater Syria, though some comments are also made about the manufacture and use of pottery in Egypt. Any study of Middle Eastern ceramics, particularly glazed wares, needs to remain mindful of international trade and other modes of circulation. Hence, these chapters also address the distribution and impact of imported pottery – from other parts of the Middle East, as well as Europe and Southeast Asia – on the material cultures of Greater Syria and Egypt. The first chapter analyses primary textual sources in Arabic and European languages dealing with the pottery of the Ayyubid and Mamluk sultanates. While textual sources of this period seldom concern themselves directly with manufactured objects, the correlation of information from diverse genres (including chronicles, geographical guides, travel accounts, charitable bequests, and tax records) provides insights to the societal roles performed by material culture. Locally made pottery was accorded relatively little status by the intellectual and political elites, however, and usually only imported wares, particularly porcelains and celadons (green ware) from China, are spoken of with great admiration. The next two chapters (2 & 3) deal with surviving pottery dating from the Mamluk period. Chapter 2 concentrates on a single bowl, recorded in a set of photographs in the archives of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan in Amman. The chief interest of the piece is its complete Arabic inscription, created on the exterior through the use of a carved mould. The inscription is compared to complete and fragmentary examples of the same type of lead-glazed ware found elsewhere in the south of Greater Syria. The final part of the chapter considers the location in the Jordan valley where it is believed to have been found, and contextualises this in relation to Mamluk-period trade routes and archaeological distribution patterns. Chapter 3 considers the dating and distribution of one style of underglaze-painted stonepaste ware found principally in Greater Syria. The distinctive characteristics (particularly the preference for turquoise instead of blue) may be explained by the movement of potters from Iraq to Greater Syria in the first half of the fourteenth century. The next two chapters (4 & 5) review archaeological and textual evidence for the use of pottery in the Ottoman period. Chapter 4 surveys the written materials that illuminate the production and consumption of local and imported ceramics from the sixteenth century to the early years of the twentieth. The range of texts is more diverse than in earlier periods, and extensive use is made of accounts written by European and North American observers in the nineteenth century. The latter

INTRODUCTION

17

part of the chapter brings together the chapters in the 4ćPŠV that deal with aspects of pottery production. Notably, there is no entry devoted to the manufacture of glazed wares, indicating that this craft had died out in the Syrian capital prior to c. 1890. The long-term impact of imported pottery is the subject of Chapter 5. This study correlates the archaeological evidence for the distribution of selected imported wares with textual sources, most notably correspondence and economic data generated by the French consulates of the Syrian littoral. These records illustrate the increasing volumes of European fine glass and glazed wares being shipped to Middle Eastern markets. The shifting economic situation at the end of the nineteenth century and the impact on traditional crafts are explored further in later chapters (especially 6, 8–11). Chapter 6 addresses the economic dimensions of the annual hajj from Damascus in the period from the twelfth century to the first decade of the twentieth. Part of this story can be told from the perspective of archaeological finds, particularly glazed ceramics and tobacco pipes, with other dimensions suggested by texts. The completion of the Hijaz railway route to Medina in 1908 marks a watershed for the Syrian hajj that led ultimately to the demise of the many specialised activities that supported the pilgrims who congregated annually in Damascus for the arduous land journey south to the holy cities of western Arabia. These crafts are recorded in the 4ćPŠV, with additional observations appearing in other Arabic sources and the writings of travellers such as Charles Doughty (d. 1926). Puppets form the subject matter of Chapter 7, with a focus on the extraordinary collection amassed by the Orientalist scholar, Paul Kahle (d. 1964). Kahle had purchased a group of ornate leather puppets in the Egyptian village of Menzaleh. His research suggested a production date in the fourteenth century, though he recognized the chronological problem presented by one puppet depicting an elite figure smoking either a pipe (chibouk) or a narghile (water pipe). 47 The chapter argues that this puppet must be dated after the introduction of tobacco to the Middle East in the late sixteenth century. This has important implications for the interpretation of the puppets from Menzaleh, and their place in the material culture of Egypt. An appendix to the chapter also presents some primary texts relating to shadow puppetry in Syria during the latter part of the Ottoman period. The next four chapters (8–11) analyse the 4ćPŠV as a resource for the study of the manufacturing crafts of Damascus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In all cases, the aim is to establish the range of crafts working with a given medium (in these chapters, wood, glass, metal, and animal skin), as well as the ways in which groups of skilled artisans interacted in the urban environment. Another New information has come to light since the initial publication of this article in 2011. The puppet showing the scene of smoking was only known to me through photographs in publications of the early twentieth century, and my assumption was that it was now lost (as is still the case for many of the puppets once in Paul Kahle’s collection). The puppet is, however, extant and is currently in the Theatre Collection of University of Cologne. I am most grateful to Nora Probst for bringing this to my attention. 47

18

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

common concern is the challenging economic climate in the last decades of Ottoman rule, with many Damascene practitioners having to compete with cheaper goods produced in European factories. Chapter 8 considers the range of craft activities in which wood played a significant role. Syria is not well provided with forests, and the principal sources, local and imported, of wood are established on the basis of textual sources. The crafts range from the collection and cutting of timber to the manufacture of everything from architectural elements and waterwheels to clogs and inlaid furniture. The chapter also considers related specialisms such as basketry and the burning of charcoal. Chapter 9 is focused on glass manufacture, as well as the making of mirrors and decorative plaster windows. Comparisons are also sought with surviving Syrian glass and mirrors in the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art in Honolulu, and other collections. 48 The chapter also explores the differences between Syrian glass and the imported crystal glass, particularly from Bohemia. The diverse metalworking crafts of the Syrian capital are reviewed in Chapter 10. The craftsmen of the city worked in copper alloys, gold, silver, and iron and steel. Some crafts, such as the makers of guns, date from the Ottoman period, but others have a much longer history. The sections dealing with inlaying of copper alloy objects provides important evidence on what is often known as ‘Mamluk revival’ ware (see also Chapter 13). Chapter 11 is concerned with the processing of animal skins and the subsequent use of leather in a variety of manufactured items. There was high demand for leather in Damascus, though the production of the skins themselves was regarded as a ritually unclean activity. 49 Many of the crafts followed traditional practices, though there is evidence for adaptation to account for changing tastes in the market place. The chapter explores both the practical and ethical dimensions relating to the processing of skins, and the roles performed by leather in the socio-economic life of Damascus. The 4ćPŠV is also the source text employed in Chapter 12, though this time the focus is not on the manufacture of objects. Rather, the chapter addresses the antiquities dealers operating in the Syrian capital in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dealers in ancient art played a significant role in shaping the discipline of Islamic art history in the early twentieth centuries, supplying collectors and museums with glazed pottery, glass, metalwork, and other desirable items. 50 They also obtained, often through illicit means, more ancient objects, ranging from coins to sculptures and ornamental details from buildings. The account of the Damascene dealers indicates that they commissioned newly made objects, such as decorated metalwork, in order to sell them to European and North American travellers. The final chapter (13) looks at a craft specialism that evolved in the Middle East during The article has been updated with information drawn from a detailed ethnographic study of Damascene glassworking: Chafiq Imam, Malak Issa-Abyad, Françoise Métral, Jean Métral, and Rabah Naffakh, ‘L’Artisanat du verre à Damas,’ Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 27 (1974): 141–81. 49 On this see comments in Chapter 10 relating to the tinner (VDPNDUĪ). 50 On this issue, see Stephen Vernoit, ed., Discovering Islamic Art. 48

INTRODUCTION

19

World War I. This was the fashioning of spent artillery shell cases into cigarette or tobacco boxes, flower vases, and other types of container. These objects usually featured chased and inlaid decoration. This craft made good use of a new source of brass, and seems to have been targeted mainly at soldiers involved in campaigns in the region. The article contextualises this activity, both in relation to ‘Mamluk revival’ metalwork and the wider phenomenon known as ‘Trench art.’

The studies in this book are concerned with the material cultures and crafts of past times in the Middle East, but it is difficult now to untangle these topics from the traumatic recent history of the region. Indeed, several publications were researched and written after the commencement of the ‘Arab Spring’ and the devastating civil war that followed in Syria. The events that have occurred since 2011 cast a long shadow over archaeological, historical and art-historical research. The documented human toll of the ongoing conflicts has been immense, and there has also been widespread damage to the cultural heritage of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere. Aleppo, Mosul, Homs, and Raqqa are just a few historic cities to have suffered from aerial bombardment, shelling, and fire, while the depressing record of targeted destruction by Islamic State and other radical groups encompasses both ancient sites, including Nimrud, Hatra and Palmyra, and religious architecture dating to the Islamic era. 51 It will be years before scholars are able to assess the true extent of these actions, and of the looting of archaeological sites for valuable artefacts. The reconstruction of craft practices, 52 the creation of distribution patterns for ceramic wares, and the revision of the dating of groups of objects are clearly activities of limited significance when seen in the wider context of continuing civil conflict, internal displacement, the refugee crisis, the destruction of infrastructure, and the loss religious and secular monuments across the region. They are, however, one small part of a necessary process of recording and understanding the extraordinary material record left by earlier generations. Our attention is naturally captured by the plight of UNESCO World Heritage Sites across the region, but these treasures exist within a larger network comprising thousands of other less famous settlements. 53 All On these questions, see contributions in Pamela Karimi and Nasser Rabbat, eds, The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Napoléon to ISIS, The Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative. http://we-aggregate.org/project/the-destruction-of-cultural-heritage-fromnapoleon-to-isis (last consulted: 10 December 2017). 52 Another resource on this issue for the region of Syria is the Crafts of Syria project. This is available at: www.craftsofsyria.uvic.ca (last consulted: 10 December 2017). 53 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Syria: http://whc.unesco.org/en/ statesparties/sy/ (last consulted: 10 December 2017). Also: Monuments of Syria: http://monumentsofsyria.com (the list of damaged monuments appears at: http://monumentsofsyria.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Syria-war-damage-9-Nov51

20

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

of these places, beautiful and mundane alike, are the result of human labour over decades and centuries; the study of craftspeople and the objects they produced provides us with ways to appreciate the contribution of the Middle East to the development of human civilisation. I hope that the following chapters will add, if only in a small way, to this larger enterprise by highlighting the inventiveness and skill of the artisans of Egypt and Greater Syria from the twelfth century to the dawn of the modern age.

2017.pdf) (last consulted: 10 December 2017); BBC Radio 4, Museum of lost Objects: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1r0gPCL8ZxYwWJ7FlhHGFZt/exploringthe-lost-objects (last consulted: 10 December 2017).

CHAPTER 1. POTTERY IN WRITTEN SOURCES OF THE AYYUBIDMAMLUK PERIOD (C. 567–923/1171–1517)1 Vast quantities of ceramic sherds of the Ayyubid-Mamluk period have been recovered from excavations of major urban sites such as Fustat and Hama, as well as from numerous smaller settlements in the Levant. Knowledge of the range of glazed and decorated wares has been supplemented by the publication of complete vessels in museum collections. As a result of archaeological and art historical research some production sites have been identified and broad chronological divisions established within the ceramic repertoire. 2 Less well understood, however, is the social and economic environment within which pottery was produced and utilised. In addition, analysis of the objects themselves reveals little about the value ascribed to ceramics in relation to other craft media of the period. This paper will attempt to provide further insights into the manufacture, trade and consumption of pottery in the Levant in the Ayyubid-Mamluk period (including some comments concerning the Cru-

Marcus Milwright, ‘Pottery in written sources of the Ayyubid-Mamluk period (c. 567– 923/1171–1517,’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 62.3 (1999): 504–19. I would like to thank James Allan, Jeremy Johns, Nadia Jamil, Evanthia Baboula, and Maria Parani for their comments and criticisms during the preparation of this paper. 2 Summaries of the state of current research can be found in: Denys Pringle, ‘Medieval pottery of Palestine and Transjordan (A.D. 636–1500): An introduction, gazetteer and bibliography,’ Medieval Ceramics 5 (1981): 45–60; Cristina Tonghini and Ernst Grube, ‘Towards a history of Syrian Islamic pottery before 1500,’ Islamic Art 3 (1989): 59–93; Robin Brown, ‘Chronological, typological, and ethnographic approaches to late Islamic ceramic analysis,’ in Late Islamic Ceramic Production and Distribution in the Southern Levant: A socio-economic and political Interpretation (unpublished PhD thesis, Binghamton University, 1992), pp. 94–154; Cristina Tonghini, 4DOʰDW-DʰEDU3RWWHU\$6WXG\RID6\ULDQIRUWLILHG6LWHRIWKHODWHWK–14th Centuries, British Academy Monographs in Archaeology 11 (London and Oxford: Council for British Research in the Levant and Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 27–74; Marcus Milwright, ‘Gazetteer of archaeological sites in the Levant reporting pottery of the Middle Islamic period (ca. 1100–1600 C.E.),’ Islamic Art 5 (2001): 3–39. 1

21

22

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

sader states of Greater Syria) by using contemporary Arabic and Western written sources. 3 The chronological limitations imposed upon this study are a matter of convenience. Archaeological studies have shown that technical and stylistic developments do not necessarily correlate with periods of dynastic change. 4 In addition, the manufacture of pottery in the Levant was likely to have been as complex and varied both before and after the Ayyubid-Mamluk period. For example, references in the Geniza documents illustrate the high level of specialization in the pottery industry of eleventh- and twelfth-century Cairo. 5 Further, it is probable that many of the places described as famous for particular crafts by earlier authors continued to produce similar goods for export in subsequent decades or even centuries. 6 A degree of continuity in ceramic production should [505] be expected unless the manufacturing region (or its main markets) suffers radical change caused by factors such as military campaigns or natural catastrophe. Discussing the economic life of Cairo the writer, al-Maqrizi (d. 845/1442), remarks: They said that the rubbish that was thrown into the waste heaps of Cairo each day was worth a thousand gold dinars. They were referring to the utensils used by Other studies which utilise literary sources in the discussion of Islamic ceramics and porcelain in the Islamic world include: Aly Bahgat and Félix Massoul, La céramique musulmane de l’Égypte (Cairo: Musée de l’Art Arabe, 1930), pp. 5–14; Arthur Lane and Robert Serjeant, ‘Pottery and glass fragments from the Aden Littoral, with historical notes,’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1948): 108–33; Paul Kahle, ‘Chinese porcelain in the lands of Islam,’ and ‘Supplement,’ reprinted in Opera minora (Leiden: Brill, 1956), pp. 326–61; Julian Raby and Ünsal Yücel, ‘Historical notes,’ in Regina Krahl and John Ayers, eds, &KLQHVH&HUDPLFVLQWKH7RSNDSï6DUD\0XVHXP (London: Sotheby’s, 1986); Bethany Walker, ‘Ceramic evidence for political transformations in early Mamluk Egypt,’ Mamluk Studies Review 8.1 (2004): 1–114. For ceramics in the Latin kingdom, see comments in Pringle, ‘Medieval pottery in Palestine and Transjordan,’ pp. 45–47. 4 On this issue, see William Adams et al., ‘On the argument from ceramics to history: A challenge based on evidence from medieval Nubia [and comments and reply],’ Current Anthropology 20.4 (1979): 727–44 (see particularly 732). 5 Shlomo Goitein, ‘The main industries of the Mediterranean area as reflected in the records of the Cairo Geniza,’ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1 (1958): 188–89. For comparative data from twelfth-century Damascus, see Nikita Elisséeff, ‘CorpoUDWLRQVGH'DPDVVRXV1ŠUDO-'ĪQ0DWÆULDX[SRXUXQHWRSRJUDSKLHÆFRQRPLTXHGH'DPDV au XIIe siècle,’ Arabica 3 (1956): 69, 71 (NŠ]L\\ĪQ and TDʜʜDʰĪQ). For textual sources on the ceramic industries of Ottoman-period, see Marcus Milwright, ‘Written sources and the study of pottery in Ottoman Bilad al-Sham,’ al-Rafidan 30 (2009): 37–52. 6 For example, Tyre is noted for its pottery in the twelfth century. See al-Idrisi, Abu ʲ$EG $OODK Opus geographicum, sive, ‘Liber ad eorum delectationem qui terras peregrare studeant,’ ed. Alessio Bombaci et al. (Naples and Rome: Instituto Universario Orientale, 1971), pp. 365– 66. 3

1. POTTERY IN WRITTEN SOURCES OF THE AYYUBID-MAMLUK PERIOD

23

the milk merchants, the cheese dealers, and the food tradesmen. These are the red earthen bowls (al-VKLTćI DO-ʚXPU) into which milk and cheese are put, or in which the poor eat their food in the cookshops. 7

Al-Maqrizi paints a vivid picture of an industry manufacturing a cheap, disposable product on a massive scale. Utilised for numerous functions in all levels of society, ceramics seldom receive mention in the sources of the period. In part, this is due to the concentration of the chroniclers and travellers on political history and topographical description, but the paucity of references also reflects the low status of the product in the hierarchy of manufactured goods. Listing the ‘noble’ (VKDUĪI) and the ‘necessary’ (GDUŠUĪ) crafts (sing. ʜLQćʰD) in al-Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldun finds no place for the craft of the potter, although he does concede elsewhere that one of the characteristics of a long-established sedentary population is that it would need industries such as the fashioning of vessels in metal and (glazed) ceramic (al-ćQL\D PLQD pOPDGćʰLQLZDpO-khazafi). 8 Writers concerned themselves with the unusual or valuable and, consequently, the ubiquity of ceramics made them largely unworthy of discussion. The limitations of the sources need to be considered when assessing the information given below. Pottery is seldom, if ever, the primary concern of the cited authors. The following discussion is divided into two sections concerned with, first, ceramics manufactured in the Levant, and, second, wares imported into the Levant.

LOCALLY PRODUCED CERAMICS Ibn Duqmaq (d. 809/1406–1407) produces the most detailed information on the pottery industry in the Egyptian capital. He makes ten references to groups of kilns (IćNKŠUD) and one ‘market of the fishermen and potters’ (VŠT DO-VD\\ćGĪQ ZD pOIćNKŠUL\\LQ) within the old town of Fustat. 9 In addition, he notes the existence of an alleyway called ]XTćTDO-JKDʘćUL\\LQ. 10 The account of Ibn Duqmaq suggests a concenal-Maqrizi, Taqi al-'LQ$KPDGEʲ$OL.LWćEDO-PDZćʰLʲZDpO-LʰWLEćUIĪGKLNUDO-NKLʞDʞZDplćWKćU(Bulaq: El-Amariya Press, 1270–72/1853–55), II: 95. 8 ,EQ .KDOGXQ ʲ$EG DO-Rahman b. Muhammad, Prolégomènes d’ebn Khaldoun (alMuqaddima), ed. Marc Quatremère (Paris: Libraire de l’Institut Impérial de France, 1858), II: 309–10, 316. 9 Ibn Duqmaq, Ibrahim b. Muhammad, Description de l’Égypte (parts 4 and 5 of .LWćEDOintiʜćUOL-ZćʜiʞDWʰLTGDO-DPʜćU) (Bulaq: El-Amariya Press, 1892–93), IV: 20, 27, 37, 52, 86; V: 41, 107, 108 for the kilns, and V: 38, for the market. See also Sophie Denoix, Décrire le Caire )XVʞćʞ-0LʜU GpDSUÅV ,EQ 'XTPćT HW 0DTUĪ]Ī /pKLVWRLUH GpXQH SDUWLH GH OD YLOOH GpDSUÅV GHX[ KLVWRULHQV égyptiens des XIVe–Xve siècles, Études urbaines 3 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1992), maps on pp. 37–38, 58. 10 Ibn Duqmaq, Description de l’Égypte, IV: 10, 21. See also Denoix, 'ÆFULUHOH&DLUH)XVʞćʞ0LʜU, Z.73 on maps on pp. 37–38, 58. Bahgat and Massoul, La céramique musulmane de l’Égypte, pp. 10–11. The authors caution that Ibn Duqmaq may refer to the same kilns more than once and that kilns may not have been in use coevally. 7

24

THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA

tration of the trade in one district set on the periphery of the city and excavations in Fustat have unearthed many kilns post-dating the destruction of the city. 11 Ceramics were also manufactured in [506] the south of Egypt. The Coptic author Abu alMakarim (fl. early thirteenth century) states that: ‘…from the clay of Aswan, which is called the “clay of wisdom” (ʞĪQDO-ʚLNPD), jars (NŠ]) intended to contain the drink called IXTTćʰ are made.’ 12 Information on pottery manufacture in Syria is also scarce. Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 626/1229) describes the town of Armanaz: ‘five IDUćVLNK from Aleppo. Here they make cooking pots (qidr) and drinking vessels (VKXUEćW) excellent in quality and red in colour.’ 13 Kafr Tab, between Hama and Antakiyya, is described by Abu al-)LGDʱG 732/1331) as: ‘a town so small as to be like a village, where there is little water. They make here the (glazed) earthenware pots (al-qidr al-khazaf), which are exported to surrounding places.’ 14 Ibn al-Shihna mentions that there is a NKćQDO-IćNKŠUDlocated outside the city walls of Aleppo. 15 Abu Shama (d. 665/1268) records that he was born in 600/1203 in the Bab Sharqi district of Damascus, at the end of the ‘street of potteries’ (darb al-IDZćNKLU). 16 Kilns and wasters of alkaline-glazed stonepaste ceram-

Oscar Raphael, ‘Fragments from Fustat,’ Transactions of the Oriental Ceramics Society, 1923–24 (1924): 18–19. 12 Abu al-Makarim’s work on the churches and monasteries of Egypt has been mistakenly attributed to another author, Abu Salih. For a translation, see Basil Evetts, trans. with notes by Alfred Butler, The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, and some neighbouring Countries, DWWULEXWHGWR$EØʛ¿OLʚWKH$UPHQLDQ, Anecdota Oxoniensia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894–95), I: 26; II: 66. 13