Mortar

Mortar

The form as well as the decoration of this piece is highly characteristic of Iranian metalwork of the period. The lobed compartments on the middle section (as well as the round ones, which interrupt the inscriptions under the rim and at the base), contain vigorous, typically Seljuk arabesques of rinceaux with curling palmettes and leaves. Such arabesques also form the background for the inscriptions themselves, which wish "prosperity and satisfaction and peace and happiness and blessing and long life to its owner." Another (probably similar) inscription originally ran around the flat top edge, but it, like the flatness of the bottom and the straightness of the sides of the piece, has fallen casually to heave use.

Manuel Keene in [Berlin 1981]

Inscription: - In Arabic in kufic script: on upper rim, now indiscernible, on band below rim and another band at base: benedictions for the owner's safety, good health, happiness, and salvation (see refs. Kevorkian Foundation, Sotheby's)

- Upper rim: Perfect (?) and security, happiness, perfect, survival ... ...
- Lower rim: With auspiciousness, blessing, dominion, health, and security
(Translation Yassir al-Tabba, 1978)

Around the upper rim in Arabic in kufic script:
.../ و التامة و/ السلامة و/ السعادة وا/ التامة/ والبقا لصا
Around the lower rim in Arabic and Kufic script:
الیمن و البر/کة و الدولة و الـ/ السلامة و الـ/ السعادة / و الشفاعة
(A.Ghouchani, 2011)

The inscription also read by Yassir al-Tabba as:
Upper rim والتامه(؟) و السلامه و السعاده و التامه و البقا....
Lower rim بالیمن و البرکه و الدوله و العا[فیه] و السلامه ...

Hagop Kevorkian, New York (until d. 1962); by descent to the Kevorkian Foundation, New York (1966–70; its sale, Sotheby's, London,December 8, 1970, no. 77, to MMA)

London. Science Museum, London. "The Science and Technology of Islam," April 7, 1976–September 2016.

Berlin. Museum für Islamische Kunst, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. "The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the M.M.A.," June 15, 1981–August 8, 1981, no. 39.

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 39, pp. 108–9, ill. (b/w).