Recovering Rayy Project

Inscribed and decorated pottery

from Rayy

Photos courtesy of Renata Holod

Senior Fellow Emerita Renata Holod is heading up the Recovering Rayy Project, re-examining and publishing material from the site of Rayy held in the Penn Museum. The site of Rayy is immediately south of present-day Tehran. It was initially investigated in the late 1930s by a joint expedition led by Dr. Erich F. Schmidt funded in part by the Penn Museum, and by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. The 2018 reinstallation of the Middle Eastern Galleries of the Penn Museum saw the display of the Rayy material finds in several cases. The modern city of Tehran has essentially engulfed the medieval site of Rayy, making the recovery of its material remains at Penn an important endeavor.

Rayy became an important economic and political fortified center due to its location on the main east-west routes from Baghdad to Central Asia and the south-north route from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. From the late 11th through the early 13th century, Rayy reached its greatest extent as one of the most significant cities of the Iranian world until it was destroyed by the Mongol invasions (1220s–1230s).

The finds from the urban space at Rayy include materials from craft quarters dating from the 9th through early 13th century CE, such as numerous ceramics, stoneware, glass, molds for ceramics, leather and textiles, metal, and bone implements. Writing or marks were discovered on a quantity of objects (mainly ceramics). These names and marks aid in the reconstruction of the traditions and habits of production and provide evidence for a complex material and visual culture of the craft quarters of Rayy. The project examines the Rayy material within the context of studying the artisanal (and artistic) practices of the early and middle Islamic periods (i.e., the 7th through the early 13th century CE).

Renata Holod is overseeing the preparation, scientific testing, and publication of the materials excavated at Rayy. She is preparing the publication of Recovering Rayy: Erich Schmidt’s Excavations at Rayy, Iran, and their contribution to the Study of the Material Culture of Medieval Iran as well as a volume on the finds from Rayy, The Material and Visual Culture of Rayy.