Istakhr (Iran), 2011-2016 historical and archaeological essays

The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of a small group of glazed vessels found at Istakhr, i.e. the opaque glazed wares. These vessels differ from the most famous high quality and finest opaque glazed wares, mainly produced in the Iraqi regions. The Istakhr finds share some technological features: a coarser fabric, with visible temper and more porosity than the Basra petrofabric; a lead-based glaze whose opacification is due in most cases to the presence of tin oxide. They circulated at Istakhr between the 10th and 11th-12th centuries. Some of the vessels presented have also undergone archaeometric, i.e. mineralogical and chemical, analyses: XRF, XRD, OM, SEM (see Appendixes 1 and 2 by Felici and Mancini, respectively). The close collaboration between archaeology and archaeometry has enabled the collection of interesting data on technological features in order to identify similarities and differences between productions and suggest hypotheses on the provenance areas of some of them.