Gilded Medieval Islamic glazed ceramics : Production process and evolution in the Iranian World (12th-13th c.) and the Timurid Empire (14th-15th c.)

actes du colloque Vessels: inside and outside EMAC '07 9th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics 24-27 October 2007, Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, HungaryThe main steps of the production process of gold-leaf decoration applied on medieval Islamic glazed ceramics have been determined. Non destructive analyses have been privileged as SEM-EDS and PIXE to determine the chemical compositions of the ceramic body, the glaze and the metal. RBS enables to estimate the thickness of the gold leaf. Surface XRD pole figures give information on the mechanical treatment the gold leaf underwent. The comparison of Timurid tiles (14th 15th c., Central Asia) with 12th-13th-c. Iranian sherds and Abu'l Qasim's Treatise on Ceramics (1301) enables to conclude it is the same making process and that the interactions between the potters and gold beaters' craft societies were not similar in both geo-chronological contexts