13TH CENTURY SYRIAN CERAMIC BOWL at the BURRELL COLLECTION

According to this informative article "In 1169, the potter's quarters in Fustat, Egypt were burned, and it is believed that the guild of lustreware potters fled to in Syria. The first lustres made in the Syrian town of Raqqa resemble the decorative style of Fatimid Egypt, but the clay was much improved now, a fine white-bodied clay.
The Raqqa potteries were quite prolific and produced a wide variety of wares including white-slips, chocolate-brown lustres, underglaze painted wares, turquoise wares, as well as Lakabi wares and Tel Minis wares previously thought to have been made elsewhere. Lustres were only a small part of the Raqqa repertoire. Unlike earlier lustres, the Raqqa examples were not restricted to court use. Many of their lustred forms were bowls, pitchers, ewers, albarelos and large jars. The lustre designs were often combined with cobalt blue underglaze decoration"
 The other chemical process was the "chocolate brown lustre made of copper and silver, the brown resulting from a richer copper admixture than any other lustre form. This pot combines a blue cobalt paint which was fired at the same time as the glaze and the ceramic, a stonepaste ware. Lustre and cobalt blue decorations appear combined in Syria and in Iran from late 12th to the beginning of the 13th centuries onwards. Syrian Raqqa ceramics were produced during a very short period (about 30-40 years), but they are particularly beautiful because the artist had a secure hand while painting and a particularly free style, that gives movement and originality to the designs. These ceramics are not of particularly high technological quality, but the artistic value of the paintings is very high. Raqqa ceramics are quite "abstract", and very much of modern taste"

The Burrell Collection has jugs and ceramic dishes made from this Raqqa period in which the "secularised" forms were so universally valued that the designs of these ceramics appear in many places in Europe from Greece and Italy in the South to parts of Scandinavia which were very much part of the trade routes of the Silk Road and Norman networks interlinking overland and well as maritime trading.

Raqqa not only had the advantage of being a key stop on the trading routes and a major pilgrimage ( to Mecca) transit point but it also boasted a very high and premium source of locally accessible materials for the making of quality ceramics which functioned as important preservative containers as well as decorative pieces affordable for the mercantile classes.Raqqa was an important link between the regional capitals of Aleppo , Mosul and Baghdad in a period where power and borders of local rulers were in a state of constant flux.Raqqa itself served as a capital for the descendants of Saladin for about a decade.The period in which the ceramics of Raqqa were most in vogue was also one in which there were 3 crusades ( the 5th,6th and 7th) , in this period there was a lot of shift of skilled craftsmen to the safer confines of places such as Raqqa.

The local clay in the area is a robust greyish/white type the artisans could work effectively , it lended itself to alkaline glazes which added lustre and sheen to the end products.All Raqqa ceramics are archaeological finds dug up from the earth , this means that pieces of a quality finish are rare to find as the design chemicals are not restorable once they react and oxidise.

The calligraphy and designs are mainly devoted to baring properity to the household of the owners.Raqqa of this period had a prosperous history of being the chief city of the community of Saladin , reasonbly distant from areas that may be vunerable to the instabilities of the crusades and its nearness to Mosul and being sufficiently far from Baghdad to have its own sphere of regional influence and identity more central of the multi-regional centres of the period especially Damascus;Aleppo;Jerusalem and Egypt and the North-South trade routes from Yemen-Mecca-Medina and the upper Syrian heartlands and ports.

The area was a very cosmopolitan mix ( like Syria today) of Arabs,Byzantines , Turkic ( from Turkmenistan) and the Seljuks ( who went onto todays Turkey) , this mix gave a vibrancy and dynamic to the city and its products , which became very popular in many sacred structures in Christian Europe.

Then disaster struck , the Mongols arrived , Raqqa fell in 1259 , was burnt to the ground in 1265.

The city did not recover until the 20th century , and today it faces trials and tribulation from which we can only hope it can recover again from unspeakable hardships and oppression and grace us with its artistry and wares in the 21st century and beyond.