2025/06/30 by Andrea Luigi Corsi · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · #Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History #Archaeology and Historical Studies #Historical Studies of Medieval Iberia
paper · doi:10.30861/9781407363196
openalex publication_date 2025/06/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
The book addresses a complete corpus of Islamic stucco, analysed within its archaeological stratigraphic context. The finds mostly pertain to the two Abbasid phases of the Friday Mosque of Isfahan (767 and 840–41 CE), excavated in the 1970s by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Iran directed by Umberto Scerrato. The corpus includes some panels in situ (from the miḥrāb and qiblī wall) and around 500 diagnostic fragments. The stratigraphic data and the analytical study of the techniques and compositions of the stuccoes made it possible to identify different production phases pertaining to the two Abbasid phases of the mosque. The book proposes a reconstruction of the stucco decoration of the qiblī wall of the first mosque (767 CE), a kind of architectonic backdrop divided into at least two horizontal registers, which constitutes one of the earliest visual renderings of the decorative programme of a mosque.