Mark Making on Ceramic Transport Jars: Clues to Persianate Actors and Networks in the Indian Ocean World (eighth through tenth centuries AD)
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Abstract
‘Iranians abroad’ left an indelible mark on many of the cultures of the Indian Ocean rim, besides playing an important role in the development of the medieval economy. Yet the mobile worlds of Persianate mercantile and seafaring communities have left very different material and textual traces from those we are accustomed to look for among land-based polities. This chapter presents a heterogeneous body of material from across the Indian Ocean world that sits at the intersection of text and material culture, a corpus of markings found on commercial ceramic containers as well as smaller ceramic items such as jars and basins. Considered alongside the vessel types that carry them, their find spots, whether made during or after manufacture, and alive always to their placement and directionality, this chapter demonstrates that this eclectic collection of markings offers an unexpected new resource for the study of Persianate presences and trade networks in the Indian Ocean world.