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Kashan Revisited: A Luster-Painted Ceramic Tombstone Inscribed with a Chronogram Poem by Muhtasham Kashani

In: Muqarnas Online
Author:
Yui Kanda The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

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The production site(s) of luster-painted ceramics from the fifteenth century onward have yet to be precisely identified due to a paucity of material and textual evidence regarding ceramic production during this period. This study focuses on a hitherto undeciphered Persian poem, which was inconspicuously inscribed in the unskilled nastaʿlīq script on a luster-painted ceramic tombstone dated 25 Jumada II 967 (March 23, 1560). This poem can be identified as a qiṭʿa by Muhtasham Kashani (d. 1588), a renowned court poet who spent his entire life in Kashan. The identification of this poem is particularly important for two reasons. First, it may imply that luster-painted ceramics were produced in Kashan during the early Safavid period. Second, it suggests that there is indeed potential for using epitaphs as historical sources, as the poem in question sheds valuable light on the editing process of Haft dīvān, as well as on the social context of the growing popularity of chronogram poems in Iran during this period.


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