Looking for connections between Arabia and East Asia : diplomatic gifts, luxury vessels and utilitarian wares unearthed at the city port of al-Balīd, Sultanate of Oman (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
Blue-and-white porcelains are undoubtedly emblematic of Chinese craftsmanship, and have been so for several centuries. However, in this paper, I analyze a quintessential piece of blue-and-white porcelain for the purpose of explicating a wider story about East-West Asian relations -- one of exchange, mercantilism, travel, transformation and craftsmanship. I explore how the ubiquity of cobalt blue on Chinese porcelains is evidence of flourishing trade and cultural exchange between East and the Middle East/West Asia (specifically, the areas today known as China, Iran and Iraq). On the level of the specific, I employ an artistic analysis of the artefact to demonstrate how the Yuan dynasty ushered in a widespread cultural transformation through the incorporation of vast regions of the globe into its umbrella of influence, and through the centralization this dynasty undertook thereafter. However, this paper ultimately questions the teleology of ownership as it relates to cultural claims in the context of contesting and changing powers.
Otte & Priestman, 2022: European Trade Ceramics on the Arabian Peninsula 1800-1960
Otte, J.P.W. & Priestman, S.M.N. 2022: ‘European trade ceramics on the Arabian Peninsula 1800-1960’, Arabian Archaeology & Epigraphy, 33: 248–293. https://doi.org/10.1111/aae.12217
European trade ceramics found across Arabia date from the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries and were made at factories mostly located within northwest Europe. After c. 1930, imitations of European ceramics are increasingly represented from factories in Japan and later China. Combining the information from archaeological excavations on the Arab coast of the Gulf and ceramics from museum and private collections, information from the archives of the British India Office and the Maastricht pottery order books for Arabia, a relatively detailed overview of this market for trade ceramics can be reconstructed. Three key points may be highlighted: First, the complex routes via which European ceramics arrived within Arabia, second, the significance of the link between producers and consumers on opposite sides of the globe, exemplified by specific designs and types of vessels manufactured for the Arabian market, and third, new layers of meaning that were given to such objects as they were incorporated into the homes, social fabric and the lives of people in Arabia.
Coastal sites recently excavated include several in Qatar of abandoned towns, forts and villages with coarse wares produced regionally and fine table wares imported via long distance maritime trading links. In the 18th century porcelain was imported from China (mainly), S.E. Asia and Japan. Nothing came from the west (Ottoman or European sources). In the 19th century Chinese porcelain included mass produced material of inferior (so cheaper) quality known as 'kitchen Ch'ing' destined primarily for overseas Chinese communities. European refined white earthenware bowls and plates were imported after c1860 mainly from Dutch factories in Maastricht and bound primarily for the Dutch East Indies with some offloaded in Bombay for transshipment by the local dhow traffic.
Negotiating Appropriation. Later Safavid Adaptations of Chinese Blue-and-white Porcelain
Art of the Orient, 2019
The beginnings of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain in Safavid Persia are naturally connected with trade between China and Persia, which took place during the Yongle reign (1402–1424), when Sino-Persian exchange entered a new era. It is worth remembering here that between 1406–1433 China launched seven major maritime expeditions that reached as far as the Indian Ocean, Ceylon, eastern coast of Africa, Persian Gulf, and Persia. Interestingly, all of these brave voyages were conducted by a Muslim admiral named Zheng He (1371–1433).1) It is due to these courageous actions that the Chinese gained sophisticated geographical knowledge and established important trade connections. It is worth noticing here that the vast crew taking part in these trips also included merchants. In 1433 the expeditions were stopped all of a sudden most probably because of the fact that China’s economy was not yet sufficiently developed to continue foreign trade expansion, which was a rather marginal activity for the overall economic situation of the country. As later history proved, this thoughtlessly and rather short-sightedly made decision turned out to be unfavourable for China, when trade was successfully conducted by the Europeans.
The Medieval Globe, 2017
This article focuses on a set of legal questions about ṣīnī vessels (literally, “Chinese” vessels) sent from the Jewish community in Aden to Fustat (Old Cairo) in the mid-1130s CE and now preserved among the Cairo Geniza holdings in Cambridge University Library. This is the earliest dated and localized query about the status of ṣīnī vessels with respect to the Jewish law of vessels used for food consumption. Our analysis of these queries suggests that their phrasing and timing can be linked to the contemporaneous appearance in the Yemen of a new type of Chinese ceramic ware, qingbai, which confounded and destabilized the material taxonomies underpinning rabbinic Judaism. Marshalling evidence from contemporary Jewish legal compendia and other writings produced in this milieu, our discussion substantially advances interpretive angles first suggested by S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman to examine the efforts of Adeni Jews to place this Chinese ceramic fabric among already legislated substances, notably the “neighboring” substances of glass and earthenware, in order to derive clear rules for the proper use and purification of vessels manufactured from it.
The Significance of Middle Eastern Ceramics in East and Southeast Asia in the 9th-10th Century
Journal of Trade Ceramic Studies, 1994
This paper is about the reverse ceramic trade from the Middle Eastern area to Asia. That reverse traffic consisted mainly of such well-known commodities as incense and glass wares. However, even ceramics were shipped from West to East. Middle Eastern glazed earthenware of the 9th-10th century have been recovered at archaeological sites in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, China and Japan. Two papers by Mikami (1984; 1985) represent the only comprehensive work to have focused on this issue so far. This paper amplifies Mikami's views, adding new information and examining more closely the role of Middle Eastern ceramics in that early phase of West-East trade.
Chinese porcelains and the decorations of Omani mihrabs
This paper explores the history of the Chinese porcelain trade in Oman with the aim of gauging the impact of these wares on Oman’s religious architecture. The large quantities of porcelain surface finds from the interior and the comparatively unusual reliance on them for the decoration of prayer niches, in the presence of equally valuable wares from Persia and elsewhere, suggest an elevated status for these objects, which is not necessarily a product of their immediate monetary value. Chemical and stylistic analyses were carried out to determine the dates and provenance of the ceramics studied, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of their introduction into the Omani market and their relation to religious design schemes. Keywords: Omani decorated mihrab, Chinese porcelain in Oman, Manah, Sinaw, Ibadism in Oman
Priestman, 2016: The Silk Road or the Sea? Sasanian and Islamic Exports to Japan
Priestman, S. 2016: 'The Silk Road or the sea? Sasanian and Islamic Exports to Japan', Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 3(1): 1-35.
This article considers the movement of commodities manufactured in southern Iraq during the Sasanian and Early Islamic periods to the furthest eastern extremity of the Old World: to the archipelago of Japan. In particular the focus is on two categories of non-perishable finds that survive within the archaeological record: glass vessels and turquoise blue alkaline glazed ceramic jars. We begin by providing an outline of the definition and dating of what is a commonplace and widely distributed ceramic product within the Middle East and western Indian Ocean area. It is then possible to place these finds within a broader context by reviewing the evidence for the earliest West Asian exports to Japan and what these might tell us about the mechanisms of their transmission and circulation and the role of such imports within an East Asian context. Specifically these include glass vessels dated to the Sasanian period followed some time later by ceramic vessels manufactured at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate. The continued arrival of Islamic glass into this later period is not a subject that will be covered specifically as it does not contribute directly to the main arguments that are developed below. Finally the finds are used to shed light on the broader debate surrounding the development of the Indian Ocean economy and to what extent Japan itself may have been commercially integrated within a wider commodity exchange network.