Tile Revetments from the 15th Century in Eastern Anatolia : A Problem of Attribution

Résumé En

Monuments in Eastern Anatolia are architecturally part of a stone tradition including, naturally enough, stone decoration. Consequently, in the 15th century, architectural tile work was not employed much, or at least only a few monuments bearing tile decoration have come down to us. Indeed, buildings rarely distinguished themselves with original ornamentation of polychrome and monochrome tiles, cut-tile mosaic or enamelled bricks. We do, however, find these tile revetments on the following edifices : Yelmaniye Mosque at Çemiçgezek, Hamza-i Kebir Mosque at Mardin, Parli Safa Mosque at Diyarbakir, Lice mosque, and Zeynel Bey Mausoleum at Hasankeyf. Eastern Anatolia was located at the junction of three powerful Empires -the Timurid, Ottoman and Mamluk -and it was also at the centre of important trade routes. Therefore, it is not surprising that this area was subjected to several different artistic influences, which could explain the variety of these tile processes. Attempts to identify the originators of the 1 5th Century tile decoration of Eastern Anatolia are faced with many problems. The challenge lies partly in the fact that artists' origins are difficult to ascertain, as there are no known sources regarding their artistic training or the production of ceramics from this period. The focus of this discussion will be to determine, through precise examples, to which workshops these heterogeneous Eastern Anatolian tiles could be attributed. Indeed, the aim is not only to establish which ateliers they are associated with, but also to reconsider the dating of some tile ornaments.