gems, Arabic science, Islamic jewelry, ancient jewelry, Persia, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia

One of the most important and richest Islamic sites ever to be excavated is the medieval city of Nishapur, located in the eastern Iranian province of Khurasan. Founded during the Sasanian dynasty (and given the name “New Shapur”), it became the capital of the Tahirid dynasty in the ninth century, reaching its greatest prosperity under the Samanids in the tenth century, when it served as the seat of the governor and commander in chief of the province. Nishapur retained its importance under the Seljuqs, from its occupation by the first sultan of this Turkic dynasty in 1037. In spite of its sack by the Ghuzz in 1153 and damage from a series of earthquakes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it remained an active urban center until its destruction by the Mongols under Genghis Khan in 1221. The present volume on the Nishapur excavations, Nishapur: Metalwork of the Early Islamic Period, has been fittingly entrusted to the vigorous English scholar James W. Allan. Allan, who is assistant keeper of Eastern art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, is also the author of Persian Metal Technology, 700–1300 A.D. (Oxford, 1979). In his painstaking cataloguing of the Nishapur metal finds and his intelligent discussions comparing the excavated pieces to others in collections throughout the world, Allan makes a major contribution to the literature on Nishapur.