Ceramics

From the fourth to the seventh centuries, potters in the Christian East were influenced by their Roman counterparts. They produced tableware, especially sigillated ceramics, culinary ware, and amphorae, using Roman examples and techniques. From the seventh century, artisans in Constantinople applied a lead glaze on the ceramic whiteware they produced. They gradually broke with the Roman tradition to produce (from the ninth to the middle of the fifteenth centuries) different types of redware for transport, storage, the kitchen, and the table. In terms of the technique and style of the work and the iconography they used, Byzantine potters were little influenced by their counterparts abroad. They used simple processes for producing and decorating the work—processes that remained unchanged without any major innovations for nine centuries. The contribution from abroad—from the Islamic world and the Christian West—was very limited.

At the end of the twelfth century, a new tool appeared in the Byzantine workshops—the tripod. This was a small support with sharp edges, modelled by hand or cast which, when inserted between the open shapes (such as bowls), enabled them to be stacked for firing. Shards from unsuccessful firings placed between adjacent objects and small, roughly made clay cylinders prevented objects from bonding during firing. They were in part replaced by small supports whose use in Byzantium became common but not systematic. The use of this tripod support is very old in the Far East—Chinese works dating from AD 220 bear marks indicating it was used at that time. Muslim merchants probably introduced this tool into the Middle East. In the ninth century, Iranian ‘three-coloured’ pots bear the three characteristic marks left when the support is removed, and there is evidence that they were used in the tenth century in Susa in Mesopotamia, and in Central Asia in the Samarkand workshops and fortresses. In the Levant, potters used this support in the thirteenth century, but it wasn't until the fourteenth century that it was used in Egypt. The separator rods, found in Serres in Macedonia, show that the Byzantines used an Islamic type of oven (from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fourteenth century), but the ceramics produced in this workshop remained faithful to the Byzantine tradition.

In the middle of the thirteenth century, white slip, incision, and lead glaze techniques were transmitted from the Byzantine workshops to the Italian centres of Liguria and Venetia—regions that maintained close relations with Byzantium during this period—, which produced such works as the Graffite arcaiche tirreniche of Savona and vessels of the San Bartolo and Spirale cerchio varieties from Venice. Potters in Byzantium didn't remain sealed off from Islamic stylistic influences. The first sign of eastern influences in Byzantine pottery dates from the tenth to the eleventh centuries: the decorations on polychrome painted ware were in fact inspired by Sassanian works. They were applied to the pottery with the aid of luxury Byzantine silks whose iconography, during this period was heavily influenced by the contemporary Iranian works that prolonged the Sassanian tradition. At the end of the eleventh century, in Corinth, ceramics produced locally and painted with red slip, seem to have been copies of Islamic painted ceramics with a metallic lustre, even though the techniques used weren't the same. An influence from works in western Persia (tenth to eleventh centuries) is evident in the production of Byzantine earthenware in the twelfth century in the decorative composition and the iconography of the sgraffito category of ceramics. The absence of Persian models in the Byzantine Empire didn't facilitate the transmission of decoration methods and/or skills. This occurred through other areas of activity or skills were transferred from one artisan to another. Earthenware imported from abroad was often a source of inspiration for the potters, but, although there was trade in ceramics in the Byzantine Empire, it seems to have had little influence on the artisans, who were reluctant to change or adapt their production. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, proto-majolica from Campania and Apulia—Ramina Manganese Rosso, Roulette Ware, Spirale-cerchio, Metallic Ware, and Graffita, produced in the workshops of Venice and the surrounding region—were marketed on Greek sites that had passed under Frankish control or had close political and economic ties with Italy. These vases were transported by the fleets that sailed from the ports of Venice, Brindisi, and Otranto, forming a bridgehead with the East and the centres where earthenware was produced. Ceramics painted in a metallic lustre and cobalt blue (produced in the workshops in the Valencia region of Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), mainly distributed in the eastern Mediterranean, are rare in Byzantium, but are much in evidence on Greek sites where there was contact with the Catalans in the fourteenth century. There have been very few discoveries of eastern pottery in Greece and Anatolia, but there have been a small number of finds in the Empire's capital. Works produced in Fatimid and Mameluke Egypt are very rare, whereas the ceramics produced in North Syria during the Ayyubid period, mostly consisting of productions from Raqqah, are more numerous. Persian Seljuq ceramics constitute most of the works imported from the Muslim world. These included bowls and decanters decorated in moulded, indented, or incised relief under an opaque alkaline glaze, in white or turquoise, some small minaï dishes from the workshops of Reyy and Kashan, and lakâbi plates. The importation of this earthenware to Byzantium was probably due to the fact that Seljuk Turks, who loved decorated earthenware, settled in Anatolia.

Some types of Byzantine tableware were also exported to Italy and the Frankish states in the Levant. Discoveries of Byzantine earthenware are mainly located in the large trading centres, especially in Venice. In the twelfth century, it replaced the Islamic productions from the Maghrib, Sicily, and Egypt, which were highly prized in the peninsula during this period. In the Near East, small numbers of Byzantine ceramics from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were also traded in the Frankish states. They were mainly distributed in coastal areas.

V. F.