- Title
- Tile in the Form of the Letter ‘Waw’
- Culture
- Islamic
- Date Made
- 12th century
- Medium
- Fritware, molded and glazed
- Dimensions
- 7 5/8 x 4 3/4 x 1 7/8 in. (19.37 x 12.07 x 4.82 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2006.138.1
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
Inscriptions formed from three-dimensional letter-shaped tiles such as this one adorned buildings in Iran and Central Asia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This striking turquoise-glazed tile is the letter waw, which is both a consonant (W) and vowel (ū) in Arabic (the former pronounced as V in Persian). It is impossible to reconstruct the original text from this single tile, but such inscriptions typically included blessings and information about the building’s commissioner.
