IMAMZADEH YAHYA MAUSOLEUM TILES at the BURRELL COLLECTION

There is said by some sources to be only about 155 Tiles from the Mausoleum of Imamzadeh Yayha in Veramin on various private collections and Museums in existence today.Out of this lot there is some in the Hermitage Museum ( The Russians stole them when Occupying Iran in their very own Elgin Marbles moment) and some in the Victoria & Albert Museum acquired ( our very own euphemism for stolen ) by us Brits.

 "This 14th century mausoleum had once one of the most magnificent tile works of Persian Architecture and even the world. Few of these tiles still remain there and most of them are stolen or purchased from local authorities during the 19th and 20th century and now are in various foreign museums and private collections." says a local Iranian tourist website.

The Curator of Islamic Civilisations for Glasgow , i , and about 7 other People know of the existence of 5 more tiles , they are not usually on public display and are not registered among the 155 known to exist.

Imamzadeh is a title given by Shias to direct descendants to the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) bloodline.Imamzadeh Yahya was around at the time Iran was asserting itself from Sunni rulers occupied by events in other spheres.A process that was further cemented under his authority.

According to the Scottish National Museums website the Tile featured above

is a " ceramic wall tile was made in Kashan, Iran between 1261 and 1263. It comes from Veramin in north-western Iran, where it originally formed part of the tile decoration in the mausoleum of Yahya, a local Muslim holy man. The tile would have been combined with other star-and cross-tiles.
The tile is made of a paste composed of a little quantity of white clay, ground quartz and ground clear glass. The tile was fired with a colourless glaze before the decoration was applied in the form of metal pigments. The tile was then fired again at a lower temperature and in a reducing atmosphere. This process resulted in the metallic lustre sheen of the decoration. The tile is decorated with floral ornamentation in the centre and a border of Koranic inscriptions, including Sura 1 Al-Fatiha and Sura 112 al-Ikhlas.
This tile was made in Kashan, which had been a centre famed for its high-quality, ceramic wares since the early 12th century. Tiles were used throughout the Muslim world to decorate buildings. In a religious context, their decoration would be mainly floral or geometric, but in secular buildings figural imagery can sometimes be found."