The Islamic Glasses in Al-Rabathah City Archaeological and Stylistic Study
Thesis
نوع عمل المنشور:
PHD
مستخلص المنشور:
This dissertation tackles the study of a glass substance discovered in Al-Rabadhah, an area deemed to be one of the most important Islamic locations in Arab peninsula, historically connected with the time of Prophet Mohammed peace be upon him and Rashideen Caliphs and the Umayyad ages until the middle of Abbassi age in addition to that it is one of the most important stopping places on the Kufa Hajj Road. The preliminary studies on Al-Rabadhah location paved the way for starting the works of search, excavation and exploration of monuments and civilization of this city. The results of Archaeological work lasted nearly three decades have been very promising. They revealed important information closely related to the components of the location. The results of this archaeological work also revealed a variety of archaeological materials in the fields of Islamic arts with highly artistic and intellectual value; the important among them are glass utensils tackled by this study in terms of description, analysis and induction.
The study aimed at several objectives. These include: identifying glass crafts discovered in Al-Rabadhah location on the basis of analysis and classification approach conducted by the researcher, identifying the methods of manufacturing them, the tools used in the manufacturing stages and analyzing their artistic methods and comparing them with what is discovered such as glass utensils inside the Arab peninsula and outside it as well as identifying their civilizational indications and the inherent artistic ideas in terms of designs and colors.
The glass crafts discovered are various such as bottles with different shapes and sizes break, beads, steins, cupping glasses used in the medical tools and food tools and the like. There is no doubt that the diversity of the shapes of these glass manufactures and their multi uses enhance the importance of Al-Rabadhah location as a cultural and commercial center located on one of the most important trade and Hajj roads in Arab peninsula.
The study sample consisted of (79) glass pieces in the artistic group included in the museum of College of Tourism and Archaeology at King Saud University and they are as follows: 33 bottles, 23 breaks, 13 beads, 2 steins, cupping glass and 7 small breaks used in the lab analysis in addition to a mass of glass slag taken from a place thought to be a glass furnace in Al-Rabadhah location.
In this study, the researcher adopted the descriptive and analytical approaches in terms of shape and content and applied the contrastive analysis approach during analyzing the artistic elements and the analysis and classification of ornaments in addition to identifying the nature of their uses and comparing the study findings with some glass pieces from the same location and from inside and outside the Arab peninsula and also with other fields of arts.
The results showed that the Al-Rabadhah glass crafts contained the utensils of keeping liquids whether related to foods, perfumes or medicine and also the utensils of keeping food and serving it in addition to medical tools and the tools of beauty and the results also revealed that Al-Rabadhah glass had been manufactured by using the known methods exercised in glass manufacture the prominent of which is the method of blowing with its different types, pouring in a mold and then cutting.
The study came up with some recommendations. These includes: conducting specialized studies on Islamic glass in the Islamic and old locations in the Arab peninsula to identify the artistic and cultural communication among communities.