An Analytical Study of the Pottery at the Malin Site (Bakharz)

Malin historical site at the South Eastern part of Khorasan Razavi province was traditionally at the center of the current city of Bakharz, which is Near the Afghanistan border and is located on a transit road between Nishapur and Herat. This site is geographically located at “48’ 19° 60 ‘north latitude and” 32’ 58° 34’ east longitude and the Rees river flows on the west side of the site. This site is of particularly importance in Archaeological studies and history of Khorasan, due to the existence of sheer volume of cultural artifacts, especially pottery samples and the continuity of human settlements; and accordingly has been subject to systematic archeological surveys. With a systematic archaeological surveys in the Malin site, about five hundred pieces of pottery samples were collected, which necessitated organization and analysis of all aspects of the cultural artifacts. Accordingly, the mentioned samples were classified into four groups: simple unglazed pottery, painted without glaze, simple glazed and painted glazed pottery, and then they were divided into diverse kinds. For this matter, both documents and field data were used. Consequently, by comparing and matching pottery strands found in Malin, it was deter-mined that settlement in this region gradually began in Parthian and Sassanid era. This process was destroyed by armies of Islam invasion and has continued until the third century A.H. The settlement in the Malin area was established with discoveries of numerous examples of non-glazed pottery and “Nishapur style” glazed potteries from the third century A.H., which in the Islamic middle ages, reached its peak. During this period, numerous examples of dish and pot-tery fragments were collected and typologically examined, which the result of this activity was the identification of more than 20 major strands, with each consisting of a subset of multiple, diverse and high-quality sub-sections like molded types, additionally inscripted, Luster Paint-ed, Turquoise- and- Black, blue and white ware and also Silhouette pottery (shade projected) and Celadon. These types, which were produced in the period from 5 to 10 centuries A.H., shows the association and consistency of Malin site pottery with other neighboring and distant regions and shows a major development during that time. In other words, the region-specific characteristics of pottery technology with mass production and outstanding types, was the most important regional feature in the Islamic Middle Ages, which shows strong links and close sim-ilarities to other nearby centers of contemporary civilizations in Iran and other Islamic coun-tries and some remote areas in China (in some blue-white specimens). This reveals the exist-ence of an extensive and integrated network of cultural relations throughout the Muslim world, and was associated with ritual and ideological integration of Islamic lands, which is rooted in the monotheistic worldview of Islam. Unfortunately, after this date, the settlement in Malin was not durable and gradually declined. In this regard, the dramatic reduction of the number of pottery types is the most important reason to support this theory. Blue and white porcelain and pottery are among the types in this period, which shows significant differences in the kind of inscriptions and design between the samples from Ilkhanid and Timurid eras.Finally, according to statistics, found according to the typology and identification of pottery in the area Malin, it should be noted that in this area the dominant pottery is without any glaze and are simple tan coloured, which has been widely produced in both historical and Islamic periods and were observed in various forms and shapes. Also among the potteries that are without glaze and decora-tion, potteries with carvings were found with a considerable frequency. In addition, in the group of glazed and simple pottery, the simple glazed pottery decorated with turquoise color, and also in the group of glazed pottery with paintings, the black pen type had considerable frequency. These samples, many of which are produced in the Islamic Middle Ages, were the main reason for development and prosperity in this region at that time.