This chapter focuses on a relatively small group of third/ninth-and fourth/tenth-century Iraqi ceramics known as blue-on-white ware (BoW); more specifically, it centres on the subset of BoW vessels decorated with epigraphy. Epigraphic ceramics, although probably not made for the highest echelons of society, now hold prominent places in museums across the globe, as well as in the literature of the history of Islamic art. While they are lauded for their artistic achievements and technical advances, these wares also represent major shifts in the popularity and use of script during the early Islamic period. Moreover, these ceramics not only reveal that script was widespread amongst the everyday tableware of the ‘middling class’, but also demonstrate that script was often transformed by potters into illegible decorative forms. This chapter will consider the epigraphic content of BoW ceramics, examining how these inscriptions provide insight into the creation of such wares. It will also explore the development of epigraphic patterns, which have often been mistermed pseudo-Kufic. These ceramics exemplify the use of script on non-elite objects, elucidating the relationship between various socio-economic groups and epigraphic materials, as well as demonstrating the role of ceramics in the broader epigraphic material culture of the early Islamic world.

Iraqi glazed wares of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries are some of the most well known and collected of early Islamic ceramics, and are broadly referred to as Samarra horizon wares. BoW ceramics are one of the better known of the Samarran types, created by applying a cobalt-blue pigment to an opaque white vessel, and they were likely amongst the earliest types of the Samarra horizon group. A recent synthesis of the Siraf material led Priestman to conclude that Samarra horizon wares appeared at Siraf sometime between 187/803–4 and 221/836 ce. Large numbers of BoW wares were unearthed at Samarra, the Abbasid capital from 221/836 to 279/892, and were presumably still in production at the end of the third/ninth century. BoW wares were made in great numbers and in a variety of styles, and their popularity is attested by their wide distribution: they have been unearthed throughout Mesopotamia, Greater Syria, Central Asia, on the African continent as far south as modern-day Tanzania and as far east as modern-day Thailand.