Mortar of cast bronze with incised designs
decorated with almond and romnbhoid shaped
bosses.
Bronze mortars were unknown to the cultures of
the Mediterranean area and the Middle East in
pre-Islamic times and were probably developed
in Persia in the 10th century as copies of cruder
stone prototypes. Mortars were used for
pounding small amounts of food, such as spices
or herbs in cookery, and were also an important
item of alchemical and pharmaceutical
equipment. They were often made of quarternary
alloy consisting of coper and lead with some tin
and zinc, known in medieval Persia as shabah
mufragh. The high content of lead (acting as a
flux) allowed an easier casting but gave the
objects a softness whose effects are to be seen
in the many surviving examples which are mis-
shapen though heavy pestle work. Indeed they
must have been a rather sinister source of lead
poisoning.
For a similar mortar see:
Hayward Gallery, The Arts of Islam, 1976: pl.181,
p.171.
- (LO.652)
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