Gilded medieval Islamic glazed ceramics: Non-destructive surface analyses in search of technological features

Abstract

Gold leaf decoration on Islamic glazed ceramics appears in the twelfth–thirteenth century in Iran. In late fourteenth century, many craftsmen were deported by Tamerlane – alias Timur-i Leng (1336–1405) – to Samarkand or Shakhrisabz in order to adorn the monuments he ordered to settle his power. Thus, gilded tiles are quite frequent in Timurid architecture and are regarded as a heritage of Iranian techniques of glaze decoration. This paper is dealing with the history of ceramic techniques and its first aim is to propose the main steps of the making process of gold leaf decoration. This study implies the combination of non-destructive surface observations and analyses such as SEM-EDS, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and white light interferometry in the light of an ancient text describing the know-how. The other issue of the study is to compare the obtained data on two corpuses of sherds: Iranian vessel dating from the twelfth to thirteenth century, and architectural Timurid tiles dating from the fourteenth to fifteenth century, so as to grasp the evolution of the technique.