Audio recording of Samarra project lecture now online

On 27th February, Rosalind and I were hugely honoured to give the annual Mallowan lecture, following the 80th AGM of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq. It was a really successful evening, with a large audience and a jolly reception afterwards, in which we gave the traditional toast to Max Mallowan, former BISI director in its previous incarnation as the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, and his wife Agatha Christie. Details of the lecture can be found here. 

BISI recorded the lecture and this recording has just gone live on their Events Archive pages. You can find us on Page 5 or by following this link.

Samarra fans may also be interested in some of the other recordings on these pages - for instance, papers delivered at the conference "Gertrude Bell and Iraq: A Life and Legacy" in September 2013, or Robert Irwin's lecture on medieval Basra, from September 2012.

Mariam Rosser-Owen

Report on the conservation of a fragment of gypsum plasterwork from Samarra

This fragment of gypsum plasterwork (A.79-1922) from the V&A’s collection was found in a house north of the modern city of Samarra, probably by the French archaeologist Henri Viollet (1880-1955), who undertook unofficial excavations at the site in 1910. 

A.79-1922 before conservation (photo: Víctor Hugo López Borges)

The panel was photographed and documented later by Herzfeld during his Samarra campaigns (1911-1913). 

Herzfeld's photograph, taken on site at Samarra, showing the V&A panel at bottom right (photo from the Freer Gallery website: click here)

 

Panels illustrated in Ernst Herzfeld, Der Wandschmuck der Bauten von 
Samarra und seine Ornamentik (Berlin, 1923), p.66, fig.90a

The panel is a fragment of rendered wall, made from gypsum plaster with carved ornamentation. The plaster’s manufacturing technique corresponds to that used in the decoration of many buildings and palaces across the Islamic world, as far west as Spain and Morocco.

Preliminary observations with the naked eye and under a binocular microscope, together with the subsequent conservation treatment, helped to identify the materials present on the fragment and how they were used. It provides a glimpse of how the plasterwork would have looked originally and how the materials were applied and worked.

Description
The fragment is formed of several superimposed layers of gypsum plaster, with a carved front and several renders at the back. 

Layers of plaster in profile view of A.79-1922 (photo: Víctor Hugo López Borges)

There are up to three layers of coarse gypsum plaster renders at the back, measuring up to 4.5 cm in thickness. These layers would have corresponded to the first work over the wall, when the craftsman applied plaster to render the walls in preparation for the decoration. The layers decreased in thickness as they were applied, so that the thickest is the layer in contact with the wall, followed by two consecutive layers of medium thickness.

The plaster mixture shows large pores as well as voids or air pockets trapped under fresh plaster when it was worked and applied over the wall. The plaster shows numerous large inclusions or impurities, such as quartz, clay, unfired particles of gypsum, and soot. Such impurities and inclusions always indicate a gypsum plaster produced by traditional methods. They can have different origins: mineral impurities naturally occurring in gypsum rocks, the result of the combustion products when the gypsum was fired in the kiln, or contamination during the subsequent grinding and sieving process of the burnt gypsum.

The last layer of coarse plaster applied over the wall was textured to a rough finish, as seen in the top right area of the fragment where the carved plaster is missing. This was done to provide grip for the last layer of fine gypsum plaster, which is the one to be carved.

The design on the front of the panel is carved into a very white and fine gypsum plaster of up to 3 cm in thickness. The plaster mixture is of better quality and of purer gypsum than the type used in the underlying layers. Nevertheless there are still some impurities present, including quartz, unfired gypsum and a small amount of clay. This plaster was applied in two consecutive layers, the top one being the very thin. Once the craftsman reached the thickness desired, the fresh plaster surface was carved with metal tools creating a design in relief. There are marks on the surface that show how these tools cut the plaster and created shapes by dragging the tools along. This probably following an outline previously lightly incised on the fresh plaster surface. The carving goes as deep as reaching the underlying coarse plaster layer. The finer details were simply produced by superficial incisions of triangular section, as we can see on the half moon line carved across the fragment.

Thanks to the cleaning treatment, it was possible to observe on the surface of the panel remnants of a white priming layer. 

Traces of fine white priming layers on surface of A.79-1922 (photo: Víctor Hugo López Borges)

These were found in deep recesses of the carved decoration where it had managed to survive. The surviving fragments were uniform and thin in section, applied as a wash of fine and pure gypsum probably diluted with water and an organic binding medium. This priming layer  would have provided a white and uniform finish to the whole carved wall. It was surprising to observe under high magnification that there were up to 5 superimposed layers of this priming wash, interleaved with reddish particles. This would indicate that the plasterwork was regularly maintained by applying new white layers to refresh the wall and hide the progressive build-up of dirt. This practice of whitewashing gypsum plaster is widely used across the Islamic world even today.

This priming layer would generally have been left unpainted but on occasions could receive a paint layer. It is difficult to establish if such was the case with this fragment, but the reddish particles observed between the priming layers are more likely to indicate dirt deposition on the surface rather than pigment.

Conservation Condition
The fragment was stable although a few fine cracks were observed across the carved plaster layer. These cracks seem to be stable as no movement was evident. Some of the edges are very abraded with loose plaster. The panel has suffered many losses through its history; it has remained in almost the same state since it was documented by Herzfeld, except for a small area of carved plaster at the bottom left corner which is now missing. There are also two areas that seem to have undergone an intervention just after they were found, since they already appear in Herzfeld’s picture (visible on the lower right and middle left sides). They were probably unstable plaster consolidated by applying new plaster and toning it to match the surrounding surface.

The surface was very dirty with heavy superficial and ingrained dirt which obscured the real colour of the plaster. The thicker and more ingrained deposits were red soil resulting from burial, and the clay cemented materials built up by insect activity. The surface was covered with an overall grey dirt layer, from the accumulation of dust and pollution, probably from display in V&A galleries from soon after the fragment reached London in 1921. 

The panel also showed numerous small cylindrical holes of different diameters, some associated with the build up of consolidated clay material in the recesses. After careful examination they were identified as the result of termites burrowing through the plaster and building channels along its surface. In some of the carved recesses, the white priming layer was heavily mixed with the deposits of clay and soil particularly from the termite channels.

Conservation Treatment
The surface was cleaned from superficial dirt with the aid of a soft sable brush and a vacuum cleaner with adjustable suction to ensure the surface was not damaged. After this the surface condition of the plaster became more apparent, revealing more areas with abrasions and relatively recent losses where the plaster was powdery and loose.

The areas with powdery plaster were consolidated with Aquazol® 500, a neutral synthetic resin with good penetration properties normally used in the consolidation of gesso grounds. It was diluted in ethanol at 3% in order to minimise the impact on the plaster, as water tends to dissolve gypsum. Several applications with a brush were made until the surface became stable and cohesive.

Some of the thick clay deposits and residues of termite activity were removed mechanically with small tools under magnification. In some recesses more remnants of the original priming layer were found underneath; they were slightly detached from the plaster but still held in situ by the cemented clay deposits. These areas had to be also consolidated with Aquazol® 500 to make them more stable and allow the removal of as much clay as possible. In the end not all the clay could be removed in some areas without running the risk of losing the priming layer.

The surface was then cleaned of ingrained dirt with Anjusil®, a latex poultice containing small amounts of ammonia and surfactants with minimal amount of water. The poultice was applied to the surface with a brush and left to dry. 

Víctor applying the latex poultice (photo: Miriam Orsini)

The latex poultice left to dry (photo: Víctor Hugo López Borges)

This method allows the cleaning of the plaster surface without the use of water, as well as minimising mechanical methods that can be abrasive. The latex releases solvents onto the plaster surface, dissolving pollution and ingrained dirt. Once the latex starts to dry, it reabsorbs the solvents along with the dissolved dirt, which ends up coagulated within the latex. Finally the latex is carefully peeled off.

View of A.79-1922 during the cleaning process (photo: Víctor Hugo López Borges)

Several Anjusil® applications where required. In between applications, some of the thickest clay deposits remained slightly wet, becoming softer and more visible, allowing them to be more easily removed mechanically with small tools under magnification. Not all the clay could be completely removed but most of the dirt was lifted off.

The conservation treatment improved the structural and superficial stability of the object, but it also has finally revealed the right colour of the gypsum plaster as well as the remaining traces of the priming layers. 

A.79-1922 after conservation (photo: Víctor Hugo López Borges)

The treatment as a whole has enhanced our appreciation and understanding of the original characteristics of the materials and techniques present on the fragment. It takes us closer to the craftsman that worked the plaster and to the appearance of the plaster when it originally decorated a wall within the Abbasid palace complex of Samarra.

Víctor Hugo López Borges
Senior Sculpture Conservator, V&A

Iraq to build museum in Samarra

A bulletin that will be of great interest to Samarra fans (you can find the original announcement here):

The Iraqi Ministry of Housing and Construction on Tuesday (February 25th) announced the start of construction on a 17.2 billion dinar ($14.6 million) historical museum in Samarra.

The museum will encompass 27,000 square metres and will feature three buildings dedicated to antiques, artefacts and precious stones from various eras, a theatre and a conference hall, a ministry statement said.

The museum also will feature green spaces, fountains, restaurants, a library and a cinema hall, the statement said.

The project is slated to be completed within 18 months.

Bookings open

Bookings are now open for the BISI Annual Mallowan Lecture: "A New Look at Samarra: Small Finds from the Herzfeld Excavation in the Victoria and Albert Museum", by Dr Mariam Rosser-Owen (V&A) and Dr Rosalind Wade Haddon (Independent Scholar), at the British Academy on 27 February. You can find further details of the lecture here, and if you would like to book, click here. Tickets are free, but pre-registration is required.

Save the date!

Dear Samarra fans - a belated but very Happy New Year to you all! We can now announce that we will be giving the annual Mallowan lecture, following the BISI AGM on Thursday 27th February at 6pm. The details of the lecture are copied below and also available on the BISI website. Booking will be open to BISI members first and foremost, but may then open out more generally if there is space, so please keep an eye on the website for updates. We will also post a report here afterwards, and the content of the lecture will eventually be written up for publication in the BISI journal, Iraq.

Wall painting fragment from Samarra, V&A: A.30-1922

A New Look at Samarra: Small Finds from the Herzfeld Excavation in the Victoria and Albert Museum

BISI Annual Mallowan Lecture
By Dr Mariam Rosser-Owen (V&A) and Dr Rosalind Wade Haddon (Independent Scholar)

Date: Thursday, February 27, 2014 - 18:00 to 20:00.
Location: The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH.
In 2013, BISI granted the Victoria and Albert Museum the annual pilot project award to research, catalogue, photograph and conserve the museum’s collection of 285 objects excavated at Samarra by Ernst Herzfeld in 1911-1913. This material encompasses architectural ornament in plaster, stone and wood, as well as objects in steatite, glass and ceramic. It forms a representative typeset of the finds from this landmark excavation, which are now widely dispersed across international museum collections; this project forms the first phase in an attempt to research and virtually reunite the Samarra finds. This lecture will outline the work undertaken over the past year, the discoveries that have been made, and how the Samarra material is now accessible through the museum’s website. It will also sketch out the ambitions that remain for this collection, and the project’s next phases. 

The lecture will be immediately preceded by BISI's Annual General Meeting at 5.45pm. All audience members are also warmly welcomed to join us for a reception after the lecture.

Tickets: free, but pre-registration is required. Bookings to open shortly.

Cairo conference December 2013

Main hall to Cairo University

 

The First International Conference of Islamic Archaeology in the East, 8-11 December 2013, Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, Cairo 

 

The current situation in Egypt made this event a little less 'international' than intended, which was a great shame for the organisers, Professor Ahmed Rageb Ali, Conference Coordinator, Professor Mohamed Hamza Ismail al-Haddad, President of the Conference, and Dr Rehab Ibrahim Ahmed el-Siedy, Lecturer in Islamic Archaeology - all from the Faculty of Archaeology. These security concerns were totally unfounded and the few of us who did attend enjoyed three days of papers and discussion followed by two days of sightseeing. I must confess that I passed on a visit to the pyramids (having lived in Cairo the past know only too well how cold it can be out there in December) in favour of a visit to the Museum of Islamic Art to meet the Director, Mr Mostafa Khaled and the Curator of Textiles, Mr Mohamed Abdelsalam, in search of the Herzfeld Samarra typeset that should have been received sometime after the 1922 division meeting at the British Museum - more on that below.

Dr Abdelrahman Salem and Professor Bernard O'Kane chairing a session

The conference languages were Arabic and English, which called for extreme concentration on the part of the few non-Arab attendees! Although the title specified Islamic archaeology to the east of Cairo, some topics covered the Maghreb, Andalusia and the Eastern Mediterranean (click here for the full programme). There were some interesting papers on Uzbek sites, and several on Syrian ones, including a distressing assessment of the recent damage in Aleppo by Dr Walid Ahkrass of the Syrian Antiquities Department. Undoubtedly the highlight for me was Dr Stéphane Pradines' assessment of Abbasid fortifications in Egypt and his tracing the continued practice of construction in red burnt brick walls with rounded towers at intervals through Raqqa, northern Arabia, Sinai, the Delta sites, the island of Rawdah, Cairo and finally Qala'at al-Kabsh, the Tulunid barracks immediately south of Ahmad ibn Tulun's mosque in Cairo. The latter two sites will be his next project to survey and plan, if at all possible. Ms Yui Kanda, currently an MPhil student at Wolfson College, Oxford, presented a thought-provoking study of the 15th-century Cairene potters' workshops, based on comparing the quality of signed bowl fragments and tiles, demonstrating that there were many versions of a signature such as Ghaybi's.

An example of one of Ghaybi's fragmentary bowl bases in the collection of the Cairo University Museum

Dr Manu Sobti, School of Architecture & Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, gave an interesting account of Eric Schmidt's achievement in aerial archaeology in 1930s Iran, outlining the importance of his work and how useful it is today for studying the hinterland of the Iranian sites.

I presented our Samarra Finds Project at the V&A, spreading the word that it will shortly be accessible to researchers and anyone interested, via the Museum's website. 

Bab al-Nasr from outside the walls

The conference days were highly concentrated, and to fit in a site-visit to Dr Pradines' current excavations inside the Fatimid and Ayyubid walls of Cairo near the north-eastern gate of the Bab al-Nasr entailed an early meeting and a race back to the university. Happily Dr Rehab el-Siedy, who has been working at the site too, was equally keen that we should go, and kindly facilitated this. It was a chance for me to meet their ceramologist, Dr Julie Monchamp, who wrote her extremely useful PhD dissertation on the pottery excavated from the north-eastern areas of the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk levels associated with the city walls. For obvious reasons photography was not permitted, so all I can include is a view of Bab al-Nasr - but if you follow Dr Pradines on Academia.edu you can access all his reports, which come out regularly.

From left: Ahmed Ali (Museum Curator), Mohammed Darwish (Museum Director), Maha Mohammed (Curator), Yui Kanda, yours truly, and Tarek Gallal (Head of PR for the Faculty of Archaeology)

Another visit made during the conference was to the University Museum. This covers both Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman and Islamic periods, and I was amazed to find four excellent examples of South Arabian votive stelae with Sabaean inscriptions. Not, I should add, found in Egypt, but donated by the Yemeni government to a former head of faculty and Chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Professor Abd al-Halim Nureddin, a colleague from the early 1980s when we were both working in Sana'a. The Islamic section is largely made up of Fustat finds from Dr Suad Maher's excavations and loans from the Museum of Islamic Art. The highlight for me was an almost complete cobalt blue flask, very similar to the fragmentary examples from Samarra we posted on this blog in August. This was apparently found in Fustat, so like the burnt brick fortifications, similar Abbasid containers, in addition to the well-known lustrewares, travelled or influenced local glass production too.

Cobalt blue glass phial similar to the 170 found by Herzfeld in the Dar al-Khilafah, Samarra

As mentioned above, I visited the Museum of Islamic Art in search of the typeset supposed to have been sent to Cairo after Herzfeld's division was made in 1922. Sadly there is no trace of such a gift and I would welcome any suggestions for where to find records or documentation about why it never reached its destination. I will start with the India Office and Colonial Office records, as both were involved in the finds being shipped from Basra to London. The museum does, however, hold 25 carved stucco panels, ten of which are on display with the remainder in storage. These were sent directly from Baghdad by the Iraqi government and must be from the Iraqi excavations between 1936 and 1939. It is now impossible to photograph anything on display without the express permission of the Minister of Antiquities, so unfortunately I am not able to include any images of these panels here.

View of the Muhammad Ali mosque and the green dome of Sultan Nasir Muhammad's mosque on the citadel

The following day we visited the Citadel and were taken to areas that I had never been able to visit before, including Qasr Ablaq, the area excavated in the 1990s where some late 13th century mosaics were found (these were described by Iman Abdulfattah and Mamdouh Mohamed Sakr at the 2009 ‘Arts of the Mamluks’ conference at SOAS, since published in the volume The Arts of the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria - Evolution and Impact, ed. Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Bonn University, 2012). We also explored the south-eastern fortifications, as well as the mosque of Sultan Nasir Muhammad and Muhammad Ali's Ottoman landmark, before descending to Sultan Hasan's masterpiece on the square below.

The group inside the south-east fortifications on the citadel

The Madrasa of Sultan Hasan (left) and the Rifai mosque (right), at the base of the citadel

In the evening I gave an extended version of my BISI conference paper on Gertrude Bell's influence on Islamic archaeology to the Netherlands Flemish Institute, as part of their regular Thursday evening lecture series. This provided a great opportunity to discuss the topic with a former teacher from the American University in Cairo, Professor Bernard O'Kane, and other friends involved in the Islamic archaeological world.

I was extremely glad that I was able to attend this first in a new conference series (by the way, next year's will encompass the eastern Mediterranean world). It was a great opportunity to make contact with Egyptian colleagues and to hear about their current research. 

The Samarra finds project is now signing off for the Christmas break, but we wish you all the best for the festive season, and look forward to continuing our project in the New Year!

Rosalind Wade Haddon

Matching objects with archives

Please do not interpret the Blog's silence as lack of activity in the Samarra Project - nothing could be further from the truth! We have entered a 'research' period, trying to identify where individual pieces of the V&A's 285 artefacts were found on the site, what they can tell us about 9th-century Abbasid decoration, and where possible identify any additional information in Herzfeld's copious documentation. Concurrent with this, objects are being catalogued on the Museum's database and photographed by the Museum's photographer, and gradually every item is being uploaded to the website, so that our goal of full access to one and all is starting to be achieved. The glass objects are already photographed and uploaded, so please go to http://collections.vam.ac.uk/ and type in 'Samarra glass' and you will see them. Ignore everything else for now, as although there are some images and information there already, these records will be updated as the project proceeds. Each plaster fragment will be photographed front and back, as the mechanics of how it was affixed to the wall/ceiling/floor are just as important to the overall picture as the actual decoration, and in the long run will probably assist in identifying which location in the palace complex it came from, and which group of paintings/stucco/wood decoration it belonged to.

The collection is a typeset of the excavators' finds but it is not comprehensive - for instance, it lacks metal pieces. However, it is easy to establish from Herzfeld's records (now housed in the Freer Sackler Gallery's archive) what metalwork was found in Samarra, which compensates for this lack. You can see from the bronze- and copper-headed nails, illustrated below, that they are not large pieces, but are decorative utilitarian objects used to secure the fixtures and fittings suitable for a caliphal palace. Each piece has been given a findspot number: for example, I-N 697 (second row, second from right) is recorded as being found in Square 26v in the Dar al-Khalifah, and described as being a "massive copper head of an iron nail, door hardware? Traces of gilding, pattern: twisted rosette" (translation taken from the Lubkins' incredibly useful document - see our entry on their visit here). The grid reference to 'Square 26v' refers us to the findspot on Herzfeld's gridded map, on the FSG Samarra resources site. 

Click here to see this image on the FSG website

FSA_A.6_04.22.071

Once familiar with these online resources, it is easy to navigate through the many illustrations and documents, and in recording the objects this facility has been useful for providing additional information. Around half the objects are still marked with their Herzfeld red inventory number (prefixed by I-N in the various publications). Herzfeld was a highly accomplished watercolourist (as we have seen in a previous post) and in addition to his sketches he reconstructed some of the wall painting fragments into complete murals. However, he did use a little artistic licence, so it is essential to double check every detail.

V&A A.29-1922 - measures h.14cm x w.16cm.
 You can see this fragment at the 
centre of Herzfeld's pl. LII in DIE MALEREIEN.
The fragment immediately to the right of this one is
now on display in the British Museum.

.

V&A A.54-1922, which you can see depicted in the bottom right hand corner of DIE MALEREIEN, pl. L


The resources on the Freer Sackler website help to problem-solve too. For example, among the ceramics there is a series of similar lid fragments, all now in different collections, some of which might fit together. Nothing published in Sarre's Die Keramik von Samarra resembles these, but in Herzfeld's own photographs, there is a group image - two with the same design and two of the same shape but seemingly with a different design. A fragment of one of these is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and can be seen on their website. (Interestingly, this lid fragment in the V&A is one of very few lustre pieces in the V&A Samarra typeset.)

V&A C.632-1922

Click here to see the image on the Freer Sackler website

Matching the objects with the archival material is slow but rewarding work, and hopefully the reader will understand why this blog has been a little dormant. Next month our findings to date will be presented at the First International Conference on Islamic Archaeology in the East, to be held at the University of Cairo from 8th-12th December. News from Cairo to follow soon thereafter!

Rosalind Wade Haddon