Cultural transmissions and indigenous influences: Glazed tiles from Mughal India

Summary

The use of glazed tiles for architectural embellishment in the Islamic world was widely patronised by the Timurids in Central Asia in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, influencing in times to come the decorative traditions of neighbouring lands. In northern India, glazed tiles began to be used in substantial numbers by the Mughals on their buildings in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, in the province of Punjab near the north-west border, and further inland at Delhi. Samples representative of tile-work on buildings in these two regions were subject to laboratory investigations using electron microscopy. The tiles from the Punjab region are similar in character and composition to tile-work from nearby Central Asia, their manufacture thus seemingly in the hands of itinerant craftspeople. In contrast, tiles from Delhi were found to be technological hybrids, exhibiting an interesting amalgamation of imported and indigenous technologies, in the bodies and glaze layers respectively. Our findings provide firm evidence of the incorporation of traditional Indian glass technologies in the manufacture of a product of essentially foreign Central Asian character. Overall, the paper aims to present the efficacy of archaeometric investigations in studying such cultural interactions, through an assessment of technologies manifest in the archaeological record.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Itinerant Matters and Hybrid Objects: Research on material transfers and contact products

Keywords

Spatial Coverage