Abbasid Architectural Stucco Decoration from Excavations at the Friday Mosque of Isfahan

is book addresses a complete corpus of Islamic stucco, analysed within its archaeological stratigraphic context. e nds mostly pertain to the two Abbasid phases of the Friday Mosque of Isfahan (767 and 840–41 CE), excavated in the 1970s by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Iran directed by Umberto Scerrato. e corpus includes some panels in situ (from the miḥrab and qibli wall) and around 500 diagnostic fragments. e stratigraphic data and the analytical study of the techniques and compositions of the stuccoes made it possible to identify di erent production phases pertaining to the two Abbasid phases of the mosque. e book proposes a reconstruction of the stucco decoration of the qibli wall of the rst mosque (767 CE), a kind of architectonic backdrop divided into at least two horizontal registers, which constitutes one of the earliest visual renderings of the decorative programme of a mosque.