The Representations on the Ayyubid Gilded and Enameled Glass Beakers

Abstract

The Ayyubid gilded and enameled glass flourished and developed during the thirteenth century in Syria. The Ayyubid beakers were particularly distinctive in their decorative technique of gilding and colored enameling, and their unique form of a cylindrical body and flaring neck. They are dispersed in books and museums’ collections, generally studied as isolated art objects. All the published and form-unique Ayyubid gilded and enameled beakers and the remaining fragments constitute the study group of this paper. The problematics of this group lie in the absence of evidence and documentation that identifies their production date and place (or workshops). Excavations located Ayyubid glass beakers in Syria, Samsat, Turkey, and in the West. Scholars mainly focused on the Ayyubid glass in general, analyzing the form of the glass, its production and decorative techniques, while specifically overlooking the representations on the gilded and enameled glass beakers. This paper focuses on the diverse surface decoration themes on these beakers. They are studied within the particular Ayyubid political context, the relations between the Ayyubids and the presence of the Crusaders and local communities in Syria, and the active trade with the East and West. This study resulted in grouping them based on the following themes: figural, animal, and architectural representations, text, vegetal and floral forms, and geometric patterns, reflecting the “porous” Ayyubid atmosphere and way of life in the thirteenth century Syria.