Bowl with a Man Holding a Sword and Shield, 10th Century, Nishapur, Iran or Samarqand, Uzbekistan
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York



A larger image of a bowl with a Man Holding a Sword and Shield, 10th Century, Nishapur, Iran or Samarqand, Uzbekistan. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Bowl
Date: 10th century
Origin: Nishapur, Iran or Samarqand, Uzbekistan
Culture: Islamic
Medium: Earthenware; white slip with polychrome decoration under a transparent glaze
Dimensions: H. 6.5 cm Diam. 17.5 cm Base: 3 3/8 in. 8.5 cm
Accession Number: 40.170.23
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York



Referenced as figure 448 in The military technology of classical Islam by D Nicolle
448. Ceramic bowl, 10th century AD, āfrāsiyāb or Nīshāpūr, Metropolitan Museum no. 40.170.23, New York.
p221 Cheek-pieces may have been referred to as asbād53 in 7th century Arabia where they might still have been used, as they apparently were in Visigothic Spain.54 Soon, however, cheek-pieces were largely abandoned, judging by the pictorial evidence, and in fact their continued portrayal in a few later sources may be little more than an artistic convention. By the early 14th century, however, an entirely new form of protection for the side of the head seems to have appeared consisting of separate round plates (Figs. 13, 45, 67, 90, 91, 190A, 354, 360, 410, 423, 429, 431, 433, 439, 440, 447, 448, 553 and 643).

53. Al Jarbūʿ op. cit., pp. 227-228.
54. Hoffmeyer, Arms and Armour in Spain, vol. I, pp. 77-78.



The bowl's discovery is described in “The Museum's Excavations at Nīshāpūr by Walter Hauser and Charles K. Wilkinson.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 37, no. 4, 1942, pp. 83–119. JSTOR
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See also Bowl with a Man Holding a Sword and Shield, Accession Number: 66.176, 10th Century, Nishapur, Iran. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Back to Bowls with figures from Nishapur, Kurasan, Iran, 9th-10th centuries, Saffarid-Samanid period
Other 10th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers