Dr Moujan Matin
Research Interests
Archaeomaterials; Materials Analysis; Experimental replication; Ceramics; Glaze; Pre-industrial mining and metallurgy; Glass; Cross-craft interactions; History of technology; Historic scientific manuscripts; Islamic archaeology; Near Eastern Archaeology; Chalcolithic and Bronze Age; Islamic and Chinese technological exchange
Primary Geographic Area
Near and Middle East, Levant, Central Asia, China, Europe.
Current Research Activities
My research interests focus on understanding the history of materials and technologies in the Near and Middle East from the ancient period, through to the early and medieval Islamic periods, up to the nineteenth century. I use multi-analytical approaches (e.g. XRF, XRD, SR micro-XRD, SEM-EDS, EPMA-WDS, micro CT-Scan) and replication experiments to study archaeological and art historical materials and have collaborated with several museums including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Ashmolean Museum, Louvre Museum, Pergamon Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
My current project focuses on the beginnings and development of Islamic stonepaste wares (or fritwares) in Egypt, Syria and Iran from the 11th century AD up to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. I am also preparing the translation and commentary on two medieval Islamic treatises on the production of coloured glass and ceramics. My other project is based on my long-standing interest in the beginnings of ceramic glazing and the cross-craft interactions between copper smelting and ceramic glaze manufacturing during the late Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age in the Levant and the Near East.
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Tin-based opacifiers in archaeological glass and ceramic glazes: a review and new perspectives
Matin, MApril 2019|Journal article|Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences© 2018, The Author(s). Tin-based opacification by tin oxide and lead-tin-oxide particles was used in glass production since the first millennium BC and in ceramic glazes since the eighth century AD. Opacification process is often characterised by significant amounts of tin oxide and lead oxide dispersed into glassy matrices or by identification of the opacifying particles by means of microstructural or (micro-)XRD analyses. The processes of opacification and manufacture are usually more difficult to establish from compositional and microstructural analyses because they leave little diagnostic traces. This review aims to integrate compositional data on archaeological glass and glazes and in particular the Pb/Sn values, with descriptions of the opacification processes in historical treatises, observations at traditional workshops, and the results of previous replication experiments to shed further light on technological issues underlying these methods of opacification and highlight new research perspectives. -
A Preliminary Study of a Nineteenth-Century Persian Manuscript on Porcelain Manufacture in the Sipahsalar Library, Tehran
Matin, M, Matin, MOctober 2018|Journal article|Muqarnas 35 -
Production technology of Nabataean painted pottery compared with that of Roman terra sigillata
Tite, M, Herringer, SN, Shortland, A, Matin, M, Pradell, T, Alcock, SEOctober 2018|Journal article|Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports© 2016 Elsevier Ltd The Nabataeans, who founded the city of Petra (southern Jordan) in the late first millennium BCE, are noted for the production of a distinctive very fine pottery with painted decoration and a wall thickness sometimes as little as 1.5 mm; this pottery appears largely locally made and not widely circulated. Using a combination of OM, SEM with attached EDS, surface XRF, and XRD, it is shown that the Nabataean fine pottery bodies were produced using semi-calcareous clays which were fired to temperatures of about 950 °C. In contrast, published data indicate that contemporary and in many ways apparently functionally equivalent Roman terra sigillata, which was traded throughout the Roman Empire, was produced using fully-calcareous clays which were fired to temperatures in the range 1000–1100 °C. Furthermore, the high gloss slip applied to Roman terra sigillata is fully vitrified whereas the red-painted decoration applied to the Nabataean pottery is unvitrified. The more robust Roman terra sigillata is therefore better suited as tableware for serving and consuming food than would be the case for Nabataean fine pottery, and would be a more successful export material. -
On the origins of tin-opacified ceramic glazes: New evidence from early Islamic Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, and Central Asia
Matin, M, Tite, M, Watson, OSeptember 2018|Journal article|Journal of Archaeological Science