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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

POTTERY FRAGMENTS   245

glaze; and more rarely with similar bold painting in underglaze blue in the Samarra style.

5. Isolated specimens of lustred ware at Dambaguh.

6. Plain greyish white ware of Samarra type.

The Samarra pottery belongs to the ninth century and the Brahminâbâd pottery cannot be later than 1020, when the city was destroyed. So that we can fairly place this

pottery in the ninth and tenth centuries. Pieces of Chinese porcelain and stoneware found on several sites in Makrân confirm this impression. They vary from white ware and celadon similar to that found at Samarra, to ying-ch`ing porcelain which is probably of tenth century date.

Associated with these Samarra and Brahminâbâd types are certain varieties which are probably local. There is hard red ware with black slip coating and graffito designs

under a rich purplish black glaze the colour of which is derived from manganese.

There is graffito ware with green or yellow glaze in which the designs are strongly gouged out in wide lines instead of being scratched with a point. There are numerous

pottery covers with deeply cut trellis design, almost in openwork, covered with green or

green and yellow lead glazes; they have characteristic knob handles. And there is a red pottery with plain mahogany-brown glaze, something like that of the well-known

Rockingham teapots, and often of great depth and brilliance. This last is certainly a local manufacture. Wasters of it—e.g. a bowl with spiral finish inside—and triangle spurs for supporting the wares in the kiln have been found on several sites at

Besides this a `spur' with mottled green and yellow glazes on it indicates the manufacture of mottled wares probably of the graffito class, and it may even be that some of

the Samarra-Brahminâbâd group found locally was made here. Indeed, if that is so, we might hazard the suggestion that some of the pottery found at Brahminâbâd came

from these kilns. There are many points of similarity between the wares found in both localities, not only in their general appearance but in some cases in a characteristic finish of the base. One notices that very often the Makrân bowls and dishes have the flat surface of the base channelled with a wide circular ring; and this peculiar finish is seen also in some Brahminâbâd fragments of green-glazed graffito ware.

A thick turquoise blue glaze, recalling that of the late Egyptian pottery, appears on fragments found on various sites. Sometimes the body is of the sandy white type.

A fragment of this kind found at Tiz has a design of pure Islamic character; and

this, in spite of its archaic appearance, can hardly be older than the tenth century. Another variety has a red body with dressing of white slip under the blue glaze. This

is sometimes decorated with incised designs which disclose the red body under the blue glaze, creating the illusion of a decoration in purple. This ware was found at other parts of the route, e.g. Fanûch and Bampûr.

Painting in black is also used under a blue glaze, but in this case the glaze is thinner and more transparent.

Several kinds of unglazed ware were found. They include a red pottery painted in black which is very like the prehistoric painted pottery, and a quantity of buff or reddish-buff wares with elaborate decoration in moulded relief. These latter are the porous water vessels in general use in the Near East. A mould for the making of these wares was found at Tiz and points to a local manufacture.