Bowl with Kufic Inscription

9th century

A white tin glaze covers the dark clay body of this bowl, but was meant to give the appearance of Chinese porcelain, which was treasured in the Middle East at this time. Although Middle Eastern potters had not yet discovered the secret to porcelain, they had developed a formula for drawing with cobalt, a technique the Chinese had yet to master. (The Chinese example shown adjacent, from roughly the same period, has pooled cobalt glaze that must be contained within carved lines to keep it from smearing during firing.) The inscription here, written in cobalt in the early Arabic script known as Kufic, reads, “Made by Abu al-Taqi.”