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POTTERY OF THE ISLAMIC PERIOD ON THE
KARAK PLATEAU Later Islamic Pottery
(fifteenth-twentieth century)
 The later
Islamic period on the Karak plateau has proved to be difficult
to trace through archaeological research. The J. Maxwell Miller
survey of the region found large amounts of coarse handmade
pottery, but it is very difficult to distinguish the sherds
dating from the Middle Islamic and the Later Islamic periods.
Although it has yet to be proved conclusively, it appears that
the quality of handmade pottery with painted decoration
decreases in quality after the fourteenth century. We know from
the reports of European travelers that this sort of coarse
pottery was made in rural areas of Jordan and Palestine at least
until the end of the nineteenth century, and a few villages in
the north of Jordan were still making attractive handmade
pottery until the early 1980s. At present, we do not
have reliable information to be able to distinguish the handmade
ceramics of different centuries in the Later Islamic period.
 Fortunately, we do have examples of other types of pottery that
can be more securely dated. Amongst the pottery found in Karak
there are pieces of imported pottery dating to this period that
show how the inhabitants of the town and castle were still able
to obtain manufactured goods imported from Syria and Palestine,
as well as more remote locations. Particularly interesting is
the presence of glazed pottery from Italy and China dating to
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Such luxury
items would have been very expensive because of the difficulty
of transporting them over both land and sea, and they perhaps
were objects used by the governor of Karak or some other high
official. Some types of unglazed wheel thrown pottery can be
dated to the Later Islamic period. In the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries towns such as Gaza and other coastal towns
started to produce a distinctive type of grey-bodied pottery.
Most common were jugs and jars used for carrying water. This
sturdy, functional pottery was exported to the regions of Jordan
[
Photo].
 Another type of ceramic object that
must date to the Later Islamic period are clay pipes for the
smoking of tobacco. In recent years, archaeologists have
recognized the importance of these objects for dating purposes.
We know from written sources that tobacco was first imported
from the Americas to Istanbul in c.1600. Although the
authorities in the city tried to ban its use, the craze for
tobacco smoking quickly spread all over the Ottoman empire
(including Syria, Jordan and Palestine). In the seventeenth
century tobacco was cultivated in areas such as Turkey, Greece
and Iran. The Islamic type of tobacco pipe is known as a chibouk
and consists of a clay pipe connected to a long hollow wooden
stem, and finally a mouthpiece. It is the clay pipe
section that most often occurs on excavations. As we know that
tobacco first appeared in the Islamic world in c.1600, we can be
sure that clay pipes, and the other material excavated with
them, date from the seventeenth century or later. Clay pipes
have been identified on surveys and excavations on a wide range
of sites from the castle at Karak all the way to villages on the
fringes of the plateau such as Mudaybi$. |
