Silver and Niello in Islamic Iberia

In this short think piece, we highlight four objects that stand in for a larger group of medieval containers made of silver and niello.Decorations and Arabic inscriptions make it likely that these metalworks were made in al-Andalus between the mid-tenth and early twelfth centuries, yet all but one have come down to us through preservation in church treasuries.Here we lay out the issues at play in our ongoing study of the full group of silver containers.Three miniature silver containers stand at the heart of our paper.These precious cases, presumably designed to hold an object or substance of even greater value, have been assigned an origin in Islamic Iberia, with proposed dates ranging from the mid-tenth to mid-eleventh centuries.Taking as a starting point the technique in which they are made-that of silver with inlaid niello, and some fire gilding-these three tiny objects can be linked to a larger group of medieval silverworks.Our brief paper looks at the textual, visual, and material arguments for dating the individual objects and asks questions that allow us to think about the wider group in fresh ways.In doing so, we also set out the concerns that inform our ongoing research

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Islam · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Historical Studies of Medieval Iberia · History