Bottle with musicians

This piece was discovered during a dig carried out on Alfonso X el Sabio Street in Córdoba. It then entered the permanent collection of the city’s Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico. It has been restored recently but remains very fragile due to the impairment of its glazing.

The shape of the bottle is unusual. It has a flattened rounded belly on a ringed base; its long and narrow neck is encircled by several rings at the top. Its shape could be compared to the bottle embel

The motifs have thick black outlines but those on its neck can no longer be deciphered. An amusing scene—perhaps from the courts—unfolds around the belly of a genre not common in contemporaneous designs. It is composed of a frieze of mostly bearded male figures. A seated man with a conical turban is watching a troupe of musicians. At his feet is what is often identified as an animal; although difficult to decipher[2]. Facing the seated man, we see first a bareheaded man who appears to be walking and holding a horn to his mouth. Behind him another man holds what appears to be a tambourine. Next to him, another beardless man holds a long staff bearing a diagonal element that is difficult to discern; some have suggested this is a chamberlain. The restoration has succeeded in recovering another figure who appears to be an acrobat, his hands on the ground and his feet in the air.

The representation of human beings has been recorded on a number of ceramics from al-Andalus. We can cite, for instance, the figure of a drinker on a green and manganese piece of pottery discovered in Benetússer near Valencia[3], as well as a number of faces on contemporaneous pieces, embellished using the same technique, which were discovered in Madinat al-Zahra in the palatial city of the Caliphate of Córdoba[4].

Music played an important role in princely life, ever since the Iraqi artist Zyriab introduced new styles of music and lifestyles to the Cordoban court. The musicians’ marquee at the Museo Arqueológico de Córdoba, several ivory caskets and a number of textiles attest to this[5].

The technique of green and manganese on white or honey-coloured glazes was imported from the Middle and Near East. As early as the 9th century in Suse such polychrome glazed earthenware with green ornamentation over white or honey-coloured glazes existed[6]. The green and manganese technique was then imported from the shores of the Mediterranean basin, from Ifriqiya (present-day Tunisia and East Algeria) during the epoch of the Aghlabides at the end of the 9th century. It apparently reached al-Andalus during the first half of the 10th century, towards the end of the Emirate epoch[7].

[2] Santos Jener, S., 1952.

[3] Valencia, Museo Nacional de cerámica González Martí, inv. 6/1409. Cf. El Esplendor de los Omeyas Cordobeses, 2001, p. 174 .

[4] Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, inv. MA/MV/1211 and 1213. Cf. Les Andalousies. De Damas à Cordoue, Paris, 2000, p. 128.

[5] Cf. for example the Leyre casket at the Museo de Navarra à Pampelune and the cushion of Doña Berenguela at the  Museo de Telas Medievales, Monasterio de Santa María la Real de las Huelgas (Burgos).

[6] Cf. for example in Paris at the Musée du Louvre, inv. MAO S. 524 et MAO S. 437.

[7] Cf. for example, in this regard, the digs at Pechina: Castillo Galdeano, F. ; Martínez Madrid, R., “Estudio de los materiales cerámicos de Baŷŷāna (Pechina, Almería)”, in  Anuario Arqueológico de Andalucía, 1991, t. I. Seville: Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura, 1993; Castillo Galdeano, F.; Martínez Madrid, R., “Producciones cerámicas en Baŷŷāna”, in Malpica Cuello, A., La Cerámica Altomedieval en el Sur de Al-Andalus, Granada: Univ.de Granada, “Monografia de Arte y Arqueología  19”, 1993; Acién Almansa, M.; Castillo Galdeano, F.; Martínez Madrid, R., “Excavación de un barrio artesanal de Baŷŷāna (Pechina, Almería)”, in Archéologie Islamique n° 1, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1990.