Sabrina Gualtieri

Compositional and Technological Characteristics of the Inlay Wall Facing Ceramics of the Jamé Mosque in Esfahan (Iran )

Introduction During the last 5-6 years, a certain activity of the institute in Faenza was devoted to the study of Timurid architectural ceramics. A lot of sample of the materials constituting the inlay wall facings of some Timurid monuments in Samarkand underwent laboratory analyses. The wall facing is made by a mosaic-type assemblage of ceramic pieces which had been opportunely cut from coloured glazed tiles and mounted in order to obtain the well known beautiful decorations. In the above studies, both ceramic materials (bodies and glazes) and mortars were analysed [1,2,3,4]. The project of characterisation of Timurid ceramic materials nowadays continues taking into account analogous monuments in Iran. In particular, the present work deals with the Jamé Mosque (Friday Mosque) in Esfahan in order to define the technological properties and the chemical compositions of the materials and to compare them with the results obtained for Samarkand. The Jamé Mosque, one of the oldest historical monuments in Esfahan [5], was built in the Seljuk period (11-12 century A.D.), but parts or decorations have been added to it in various periods. So, the building represents different architectural and ornamental styles of the Islamic period in Iran, including the Timurid period that is mainly evident in the decorations of western portico of mosque.

Archaeometric comparison between the Neolithic pottery of different cultures at the archaeological site of Alba Iulia (Transylvania, Romania)

A large quantity of pottery has been discovered at the Lumea Nouă Neolithic and Eneolithic settlement in Alba Iulia City (Romania). It belongs to different cultures, and in this paper a comparison among three of them is made: Vinca, Lumea Nouă and Foeni. An analogous number of samples has been selected for each of the three cultures, together with some clay samples collected in the Alba Iulia settlement area. The samples have been analysed by means of XRF, XRPD, and in thin section. Significant differences among the three cultures are only related to the alkalis contents. The Lumea Nouă pottery has higher potassium contents and contains microfossils, while the Foeni pottery differs to each other for the higher sodium contents. A clear correspondence between pottery and clays has not been found, so that we hypothesize that not all the pottery is local or, more probable, that a geological gradual variation in local clay deposits existed.