Following
on the visit to London of our Berlin colleagues, Dr Julia Gonnella
and Simone
Struth, in February, a joint trip to Paris was planned and
kindly arranged by Dr Charlotte Maury. She had already provided us with
an
illustrated list of the Herzfeld material (pottery, steatite, glass,
mosaic
tesserae) despatched from the British Museum in 1922. This shipment was
sent in exchange for a
collection of comparative material excavated in the Islamic levels at
the
Iranian site of Susa or Shush in Khuzestan, formerly the Elamite
capital, which
lies to the east of the major Iraqi sites of Babylon, Kish and Nippur.
The Louvre collections also hold 104 carved plaster fragments, most of
which would
appear to have been found in Samarra, some of which are illustrated in
Herzfeld's archives in the Smithsonian and published in Henry Viollet's
1911
publication, Un palais musulman du IXe siècle. Charlotte proved to be a most enthusiastic
guide and endlessly patient with all our questions.
 |
| In the Louvre Galleries. From left to right: Charlotte Maury, Julia Gonnella and Simone Struth |
We met in
the Louvre on Tuesday 29 April, when the museum was closed to the general
public, so
once we had emerged from the depths of their reserves, where most of the
material is kept, it was a delight to have the Islamic galleries entirely to ourselves - although navigating the route to the museum was complicated
by the heightened security imposed by the President's visit to the inaugural
exhibition of the 'Louvre Abu Dhabi' (see here for details).
 |
| A mixture of red porphyry, yellow stone and some gold leaf-coated stone tesserae together with multicoloured glass millefiori tile fragments |
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| Red porphyry tesserae, some of which were rounded rim fragments, indicating that these are recycled bowl fragments |
 |
Crude mosaic fragment with glass tesserae (some
with gold leaf) embedded in a gypsum plaster base (accession no. OA7735/54). Unfortunately this does not have a Herzfeld
I-N locus number. |
There is apparently no record indicating who chose the 'representative
collection' which was sent to the Louvre. Three media are conspicuously absent: wood, carved stone
architectural pieces, and painted plaster. New aspects are revealed every time we delve into the Herzfeld collections. Many of the Louvre's tesserae are
stone rather than glass. The red stones must be porphyry, and the yellow stones may be some form of chalcedony. Both need to be positively identified. A closer
inspection of the red pieces revealed the rounded profile of a rim, indicating
that these once belonged to a vessel, perhaps recycled as mosaic after breakage. The collection also includes several pieces of gypsum plaster with tesserae embedded in
them, revealing a rather crude application. Unfortunately none of these have a
Finds Journal number indicating their original find spot.
 |
| Lunch break at a
traditional French restaurant. From left to right: Simone Struth, Julia Gonnella and Yannick Lintz |
Lunch in a traditional French restaurant behind the
Louvre was a welcome break, hosted by Dr Yannick Lintz, the new Director of the Islamic Department.
She is equally enthusiastic about the Samarra Finds project and graciously
agreed to help us in our quest to bring all the information together digitally.
 |
| Seminar in the
Université de Paris I. Julia Gonnella being introduced by Alastair Northedge |
The following evening we all met up again for a seminar organised by
Professor Alastair Northedge at the Université de Paris I. He had invited
Julia to present to his postgraduate students the talk that she had presented in
Doha in 2011 (now published in the volume Godis Beautiful and Loves Beauty, edited by Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom). Several of his students are working on different aspects
of Samarra's architecture and decoration: Fatma Dahmani on the wall paintings;
Vanessa Rose on the tiles; Iraqi architects Emad al-Faraj and Ahmad al-Gribaoui
on the architecture. Following this, we repaired to a nearby café
for refreshments and to continue our Samarra discussions until the proprietors
were no doubt wishing we would exhaust the topic and go home!
Rosalind Wade Haddon
