The Ceramics of Balis: Toward the Recovery of Lost Heritage

FAIN: FEL-295358-24

Stephennie Mulder
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)

Research and writing leading to a critical heritage studies monograph on the excavated ceramics from the medieval site of Balis, Syria.

This project is a major new analytical study of Islamic ceramics produced during Syria/Princeton University’s joint excavation at Balis, a medieval Syrian city. Balis was an important ceramics manufacturing center where excavations revealed a workshop and hundreds of kilns. With over 1,000 photographs and drawings collected over my twelve years as head ceramicist at the site, this will be among the most comprehensive Islamic archaeological ceramics studies published to date. The study is cross-disciplinary and integrates my expertise in art history, archaeology, and critical heritage studies to interpret material from the Umayyad to the Ayyubid period (ca. AD 700-1260). This two-volume publication will combine archaeology with theories of materiality to frame ceramics as objects of medieval daily life, as key vectors of medieval global trade and circulation, and as contemporary objects of local heritage that can aid in reimagining Syria’s future in the aftermath of the trauma of war.