Glazed Ifriqiyyan ceramics from the Hafsid period from the site of Kom el-Dikka in Alexandria
Glazed Ifriqiyyan ceramics from the Hafsid period from the site of Kom el-Dikka in Alexandria

Summary/Abstract: The presented pottery collection comes from the excavation of a medieval Islamic cemetery discovered at the Kom el-Dikka site in Alexandria, Egypt. The described set represents only a small fraction of an assemblage consisting of ceramics imported from the world known at the time. Hafsid pottery is easily distinguished thanks to a characteristic palette of colors: brown and blue patterns painted on a creamy-white background. The decoration repertoire can be divided into the following main groups of motifs: zoomorphic, floral, geometric and pseudo-epigraphic. The archaeological evidence is insufficient to support a periodization of this collection; the suggested dating follows from a stylistic analysis of the decoration compared with dated parallels from excavations on the citadel in Tunis and the bacini (bowls) preserved in Italian cathedrals.

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