The technological development of stonepaste ceramics from the Islamic Middle East
Abstract The microstructures and chemical compositions of stonepaste bodies from the Islamic Middle East, typically produced from a mixture of ten parts crushed quartz, one part crushed glass and one part white clay, are investigated using analytical scanning electron microscopy. For comparison, replicate stonepaste bodies are produced in the laboratory at firing temperatures in the range 900–1200 °C, and are similarly examined. The stonepaste bodies are divided into four primary microstructural groups that reflect the increasing reaction during firing of the glass fragments with the clay and quartz particles. The observed microstructures are then used to assess the geographical and chronological variations in the production technology of stonepaste ceramics from Egypt, Syria, Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkey, spanning the period from 11th to 17th centuries AD.
Petrography of Pottery from Kirman
The ceramic mdustry of Safavid Iran represents one of the high points of the production of pottery in the world, and especially in the Islamic world where it represents one of the final flowerings of a long and dynamic tradition. Like earlier pottery made in the Islamic world, it would seem that Safavid fme wares were made in a restricted number of centres. Textual evidence for the identification of these centres exists, citing Mashhad, Kinnan, Isfahan, Yazd, Shiraz and Zarand. However, although attempts at attributing specific styles of Safavid ceramics to particular centres had been made over the years, particularly that of Arthur Lane (1957), no concrete evidence linking specific styles to specific centres has been proposed. Hence as part of an interdisciplinary study of Safavid ceramics, a programme of petrographic analysis of Safavid wares was initiated (Mason and Golombek, in press). This study has enabled the characterisation of Safavid wares by examination of the rocks and minerals found within the body. Five groups of petrographicallydefined fabrics, or petrofabrics, were found in the sampled wares, and these were attributed to sites of production, albeit in some cases this attribution is tentative. One of these tentative attributions is to the site of Kinnan, indicated by historical sources to be one of the most important of the Safavid centres of production. Hence this became a focus for further study, a programme of collecting relevant wares in the vicinity of Kinnan (see Golombek, above, pp. 253-270), and their subjection to petrographic analysis. This paper is the result of that investigation.
Magnetic properties of Lu2Fe17 crystals
Abstract We present the results of crystal structure and magnetization studies of three single crystals grown from melts of different nominal compositions in the vicinity of the Lu2Fe17 stoichiometry. The ferromagnetic state of the crystals is strongly dependent on the real sample composition and the local atomic ordering. A drastic difference is observed in the behaviour of the ferro–antiferromagnetic transition, even in crystals for which almost identical composition and crystal parameters were determined by microprobe and X-ray analysis.