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The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Art of Nishapur (mid-9th–early 12th century)

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    Nishapur began to assume major influence from the mid-ninth century A.D., becoming in the tenth through twelfth centuries one of the great political, commercial, and cultural centers in medieval Iran and the Islamic world. The richest oasis and chief city of the eastern Iranian province of Khorasan, Nishapur was well situated along the Silk Road across which goods were exchanged between the Far and Near East. Excavations were undertaken by the Iranian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum from 1935 to 1940, with a final season in 1947. The excavations were spread over several different mounds, or tepes, which revealed both residential quarters as well as a palace or a governmental building. The material unearthed at Nishapur, of high artistic as well as documentary importance, was produced locally and traded, paralleling the city's political and commercial prominence.


    Special mention should be made of the advanced development of the underglaze-painting technique seen in Nishapur's ceramic wares. It was presumably in eastern Iran or the immediately adjacent part of Central Asia that slip painting under a transparent lead-fluxed glaze was first put to use (in the ninth century), and it was in these regions that this technique reached perhaps its highest peak of refinement. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new type of pottery began to take precedence, one which featured white bodies made of ground and compounded silicaceous materials.

    Nishapur was also an important center for the manufacture of glass, metal, and stone vessels as well as textiles. None of the latter were found in the excavations, no doubt due to their highly perishable nature. However, beautifully decorated spindle-whorls were excavated by the hundreds. Smaller items such as toys, game pieces, musical instruments, and beads help to throw light on everyday activities in Nishapur and give us a better understanding of its ongoing life.

    Architecture and architectural decoration were also highly developed at Nishapur. A refined tradition of wall painting, revealed by the excavations, shows links with Buddhist Central Asia and Sasanian tradition as well as with ninth-century painting of caliphal Iraq. Carved stucco decoration, perennially important in Iranian architecture, is most notably represented by the reconstruction of a small iwan, or hall, of the tenth century (from the mound called Sabz Pushan), whose dadoes must have given an even more sumptuous visual effect before the loss of their polychrome painting.


    Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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    Archaeologists at the site of Nishapur during the first phases of excavation of the Plaster Tepe (mound).

    Room 3 of the Plaster Tepe after excavation, showing a wine press and an intact wine container in situ.

    The northeast corner of an inner room excavated at the Plaster Tepe, showing two doorways. The one to the right leads to the plaster room.

    The trading city of Nishapur and the excavations of The Metropolitan Museum of Art