R - Metropolitan Museum of Art

SM
75-80. According to accounts from the
Early period onward, glass was employed
to decorate the interiors of buildings in
the Muslim world, but few architectural
elements executed in or incorporating
glass have survived from before the Late
period. The excavations at Samarra,
which yielded a number of differentypes
of such architectural decoration, are the
richest source of such elements from the
Early period. The so-called millefiori
(meaning"thousand
flowers") tiles must
have given a most dazzling and kaleidoscopic
effect. Two fragments of such
tiles-which we know, from more complete
examples, measured approximately
22 centimetersquare-are seen above
(no. 75). A method used by Roman glassmakers
was employed to constructhe
tiles. First, glass canes of various colors
were arranged in differing patterns and
fused together in a series of cylindrical
molds. The resulting cylinders were then
stretched into long tubes, from which
individual pieces were sliced off and arranged
side by side in an open mold to
form a pattern. Final heating and polishing
produced the finished tile.
The hollow, clear, colorless object to
the right of the millefiori fragments
(no. 76) belongs to a rather large group
composed of elements of various geometric
shapes found in the most luxuriously
decorated area of Samarra's
Jausaq Palace-the harem. It is impossible
to say how these pieces were used.
Each has a flangelike border that somehow
must have secured the element to
another surface, perhaps one of stucco.
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