"Fighting Cocks or Romantic Roosters? New Approaches to the Study of Fatimid Iconography"

Abstract

In this paper, Fahmida Suleman demonstrates how images, or iconography, found on lustre pottery produced during the Fatimid period can be used as tools by historians to learn more about the social history of the mediaeval Mediterranean world. Working with popular and courtly literature of the period, Fahmida unravelled the layers of meaning that the image of the cockfight probably conveyed to different members of mediaeval Egyptian society. The cockfight bowl, belonging to the Keir Collection in Richmond, England, is one of the best-preserved examples of mediaeval lustre pottery painted by artists working in the Egypt of the Fatimids, although nothing is known about its owner or about the artist(s) that produced it.

Arabic poetry and literary accounts from the mediaeval Arab world confirm that cockfighting was a pastime or a form of entertainment that was enjoyed by both rulers and citizens. Images on art, as on this lustre bowl, and in literature, suggest that this tradition was maintained in the mediaeval Mediterranean world. The image of the cockfight, however, is enriched by other pre-Islamic and Islamic traditions that had developed by the time this bowl was produced, adding even greater significance and meaning to images of cockerels and cockfighting, and confirming that many of the images found on art produced in the Fatimid period cannot be captured by a single interpretation.