PROGRESS
REPORT ON SAMARRA FINDS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Work began on cataloguing the Herzfeld Samarra Finds in the
British Museum's collection on 8 July 2014. As for the V&A, this involves
preparing images for the museum's online database, checking all the descriptive
details and adding in vital information on the find spots now available through
the digitisation of Herzfeld's excavation records in the Smithsonian. The
museum holds some 3,000 fragmentary objects, many of which are inscribed with
one of Herzfeld's red find numbers. For example, information on this piece of
marble in the Finds' Journal tells us that it is one of several pieces of carved
marble found on a walk around Quwayr (al-Wāthiq's [r.842-847] palace west of
the Dar al-Khilafa overlooking the Tigris, facing Qasr al-͑Āshiq, and also
known as al-Harūniyya). Unusually Herzfeld indicated the findspot in full on
the object - I can imagine him writing 'Quwair' before pocketing it so that he
would not forget, as he encountered more and more fragmentary pieces!
OA+.10845,
I.-N.517
The cataloguing process is carried out in the Students' Arched
Room, in natural daylight. Trays are brought up from storage, and the finds
gradually processed and then the details added to the online database.
Students'
Arched Room
March brought the exciting news of a generous gift from the Albukhary Foundation in Malaysia to re-present the
Islamic Galleries in the heart of the museum. For Samarra this means an
opportunity for the Herzfeld Finds to be displayed in a comprehensive manner,
with additional data panels to be available digitally and the ability for
visitors to download all this information onto portable devices such as phones
or tablets. So the wider picture will be conveyed by simple digital means and
the objects will be viewed as part of a much bigger, more comprehensible culture.
This
gift is a wonderful opportunity for object conservation and the first five wall
painting and carved (and part moulded) plaster fragments are now in the
museum's stone conservation laboratory being prepared for this lengthy process.
These were taken from a 'wish list' of the first 20 objects to be conserved.
They are now the responsibility of conservators Tracey Sweek, Alexa Clifford, Tomasina
Munden and Stefanie Vasilou who will clean, stabilise, and study them closely
to see if they can garner further formation - such as traces of
pigments on the carved plaster, pigment analysis on the wall paintings - and be
prepared for future display. See Victor Borges' and Lucia Burgio's earlier
blogs for this process in the V&A.
Conservators
(l to r) Tomasina Munden, Tracey Sweek, Alexa Clifford and curator Mahmoud
al-Hawari on our visit to Stone Conservation
A further visit was made to the conservation laboratory on 4
June 2015, where incredible progress has already been made on the objects
undergoing cleaning and stabilising.
OA+.11177.1 - painted and gilded plaster with
one half cleaned with a 'smoke sponge'
OA+.10992 - before (top) now cleaned and
stabilised (bottom)- this was originally in a bath just to the west of the Great
Mosque
OA+.11010 - traces of red pigment were found
on the deeply cut flat areas, behind the volutes and the conservators found
evidence for part of the decoration being moulded
Tracey Sweek explained that
the initial cleaning is carried out with a 'smoke sponge' - an efficient and
non-invasive means of dry cleaning and removing the layers of accumulated dirt.
She told us that the gold leaf gilding (see OA+11177.1)is definitely 'water
gilding' and not an oil-based one. She has also identified red pigment on the ground
backing the deeply-cut volutes that formed the decorative friezes (OA+.11010) in
the Dar al-Khilafa's Bab al-͑Amma, or main monumental entrance way on the river
side.
Processing the small finds
is a fascinating exercise and many of the finds confirm Herzfeld's incredible
knowledge of the artefacts he was handling. For example, I was amazed to find a
tiny fragment of Ilkhanid so-called 'Sultanabad' (now known as
'coloured-ground' ware) amongst the material from Qasr al-͑Āshiq. When double
checking this with his Finds Journal entry I find that his 1912 entry is: 'Small
fragment of gray-white-black ware with relief', and at some stage he added in
pencil 'Sultānābad (?)'. Of course there is no
knowing when this addition was made, but it is certainly a correct
identification and extends the occupation of this site to the 14th century at
least. He mentions Raqqa wares too for this location, and there are several
examples in the collection, such as the jug neck fragment, OA+.11569,
illustrated. Sarre touches on this aspect of continuous occupation of some
areas in his 1925 pottery volume, but did not publish much later material;
Alastair Northedge notes that Qasr al-͑Āshiq was occupied through to the
Ottoman period in his article entitled ‘Friedrich Sarre’s Die Keramik von Samarrain perspective’,[1]
and cites Herzfeld's Day Book 1 as stating that 25% of the pottery finds were
so-called Raqqa wares. So while much of the site can still be interpreted as
being limited to the 9th century, it is important to be aware of
later material.
|
OA+.11567, I.-N.438; OA+.11569,
I.-N.437
|
[[[
[1] Alastair Northedge 1996, eds
K. Bartl and S. Hauser, Continuity and
Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic to the Early
Islamic Period: Proceedings of a Colloquium held at the Seminar für
Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde, Freie Universität Berlin, 6th-9th April, 1994,
Dietrich Vaimar Verlag, Berlin: 229-58.
Rosalind Wade-Haddon
