Page 301 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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potentially earlier splash wares in the same assemblage may suggest a less
concrete time range for the form. The bowl form, for example, is much like Figure
64j which has parallels at Samarra. Obviously, greater stratigraphic control is
needed before a close temporal range can be claimed, but the Bahrain example can
still be assigned to and be used as an indicator of a general Abbasid range during
ninth through eleventh centuries A.D.

Other Early Islamic Pottery

In addition to the examples shown in Figures 63 and 64, other Early Islamic pottery
forms have been recovered from surface sites on the islands. Among these are
white, lead glazed bowls with cobalt blue designs (Hobson 1932; Lane 1947; Sarre
1925) and fine repousse decorations on thin-sided vessels covered by thin yellow
green glazes (Lane 1947, Plate 4, 5a; and Hobson 1932, Plate 2, nos. 2, 5).
Summary
In general, the Bahrain collection reflects upon the Abbasid period in Iraq.
Earlier Islamic wares are also present in surface collections. The various glazes
and styles are indicative of Mesopotamia. Strong ties with the ninth century
Samarran assemblage are present for example. Other forms point to earlier
Mesopotamian parallels. Similar ceramics are also known from a number of other
sites in the gulf such as Siraf, Tiz, Dhahran, Hofuf, as well as several in Oman
(Whitcomb 1975:125). Although other areas of the gulf may have been related to
Abbasid and Buy id Baghdad during the ninth and tenth centuries, when international
trade was at a peak, these same ceramic assemblages on Bahrain and from eastern
Saudi Arabia coincide with the period of Carmathian rule. The forms discussed
here provide a general means for identifying ninth-through eleventh-century
Islamic sites on the islands. The identification of seventh- and eighth-century
forms relies on Adams^ (1965) and Gibsons*s (1972) Early Islamic criteria.