From the 9th to the 11th century, Sicily has been part of the Islamic oecumene, the dār al-Islām. Up until now, very few studies have been carried out on the centres of pottery production of this period, and most of them concern the Emiral capital of the isle, Palermo. The archaeometric data obtained with chemical...Read More

Light is a universal theme. Scholars have discussed its theosophical points, but it has rarely been addressed archeologically. Can light, though immaterial and evanescent, be understood and thus become an archeological object? Different sources – photometrical, archeological, and textual – point to the possibilities of exploiting light, either directly – through objects that transform or...Read More

By the end of the 15th century, the discovery of new lands had become a major ambition in Europe. At the time, European knowledge of Arabia was based on descriptions by the classic authors1 and Ptolemy’s Geography, which dates back to the 2nd century. The opening of trade with India would enable the more detailed...Read More

With the explosion of new material emerging from a branch of archaeology that focuses specifically on Islamic periods and Islamic lands since the 1980s, it is most pertinent to consider its origin, its development, and its potential in reconstructing and interpreting past ways of life. Islam has been a literate culture since its inception; thus,...Read More