A Medieval Stonepaste Ceramic Production Site in Moshkin Tepe, Iran: Ceramics, Wasters, and Manufacturing Equipment

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stonepaste (or fritware) is an artificial ceramic body, generally thought to have been produced from the eleventh/twelth century in the Islamic lands. Stonepaste production radically transformed the development of medieval Islamic ceramics and was eventually used for all high-quality pottery in central and eastern Islamic lands until the modern period. Despite the significance of stonepaste ceramics, archaeological evidence for their production is extremely rare and most propositions of provenance are based on art historical evidence alone. This paper reports evidence for stonepaste ceramic production from the medieval site of Moshkin Tepe in Central Iran, including stonepaste ceramic sherds, wasters, and a large collection of manufacturing equipment (i.e. hand mills, kiln rods, saggars, and remnants of kiln walls). Through field surface collection and laboratory analyses of the finds, this paper identifies the distinctive characteristics of Moshkin Tepe stonepaste ceramics. It also discusses the manufacturing equipment used and compares the material finds with the descriptions in the medieval Persian textual account by Abu’l Qasim Kashani on the production of stonepaste wares. The results presented here could pave the way to trace and study the manufacture of stonepaste ceramics and to compare different productions across the broader context of medieval Islamic lands.