Although there are a few general surveys of early Islamic metalwork, and numerous detailed studies of particular objects or object groups, no comprehensive study of the metalworking industry in Iran in early Islamic times has yet been written. This thesis aims to provide that study first by assembling as much as possible of the basic information on metalworking in Iran from the Islamic conquests to the mid 13th century and then by using it to draw some general conclusions about the range and history of Iran's metalworking industries at this time. The primary sources used are the references to metals and metalworking in early Islamic literature and the surviving objects. For technical information and for select vocabularies of the relevant Arabic and Persian terminologies the technical treatises of al-Hamdānī, al-Birūnī, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, and Abū'l-Qāsim al-Kāshānī have been particularly exploited. For the names and functions of particular objects or object groups a range of Arabic non-technical works has been searched. For the gazetteers and general discussions of metal sources Arabic and Persian geographical works have been utilised. The objects catalogued and discussed here include all the published pieces known to the author, together with unpublished objects in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum (including Sirāf excavation material), the Musée du Louvre in Paris (including Susa excavation material), the Museum für Islamische Kunst Berlin-Dahlem, the StaatlicheMuseum in East Berlin, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, the Philadelphia University Museum (including the Rayy excavation material), the Walters Art Gallery, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (including the Nīshāpūr excavation material), and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. All objects have been arranged in groups on the basis of metal, function, and form, and catalogued accordingly, and an overall dating and provenancing for each group has been established through reference to their decoration, including inscriptions where relevant, and archaeological data. Additional use has been made of analyses undertaken by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Musee du Louvre, and the Ashmolean Museum, plus a limited number of other published analyses: all these are included in a single Table.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:580768 |
| Date | January 1976 |
| Creators | Allan, James W. |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:278c6978-9421-46af-af61-a062a2044591 |
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