Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This volume includes: an essay that identifies and categorizes Tell Minis ware, a hitherto unrecognized class of 12th-century Syrian pottery; an important, previously unpublished article by the late Andrew Williamson on the distribution of glazed ceramics in medieval Iran; and a study on the ceramics excavated by Williamson at the site of medieval Sirjan in Kirman province.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This book presents descriptions of two new ceramic traditions. The first, consisting of 28 pottery groups illustrated in 62 figures, is the definitive statement of Sirjan ceramics by Morgan and Leatherby. Sirjan was a provincial capital of Kirman province in southern Iran, c. 10th to 14th centuries. Based on cross-dated trade pottery, the 5,000 shards are dated c. 950-1050. The second group from "Tell Minis" and Hama near Antioch in Syria, are the first frit-bodied and decorated luster-painted wares made in Syria. V. Porter and O. Watson propose that the "Tell Minis" potters' antecedents are in Egypt, and the introduced techniques were spread by Egyptian potters in the general migration of craftsmen in the 12th-century Islamic world. Finally, Williamson presents a distributional study of two ceramic wares: opaque-white and slip-painted that were made in small localized centers in southern Iran; their distribution is a product of fashion, and reflects local cultural group preference. This work is important to art historians, archaeologists, and museum specialists that deal with the heritage of Islam and the history of pottery. P. J. O'Brien Kansas State University