Samarra millefiori glass tiles

Millefiori glass tiles are among the most famous glass finds of Samarra, believed to have adorned the audience hall of the Dar al-Khilafa. ¹ Nadine Schibille assigns them to the Samarra 2 group of Mesopotamian plant-ash glass, together with the cobalt-blue vessel fragments with scratched decoration. ¹

Al-Ya'qubi (d. 897) relates that the caliph al-Mu'tasim gathered groups of craftsmen, glassworkers among them, from Basra and sent them to his new capital Samarra, which Schibille thinks may explain the sophistication and selectivity of Samarra's glass. ² The systematic differences between the Samarra 1 and Samarra 2 groups and their correlation with object types point to deliberate selection of raw materials and a willingness to invest effort in near-colourless glass for the aesthetic of the Abbasid "glass palaces". ^{2 1}

Comparing the tiles with Sasanian glass from Ctesiphon and Merovingian beads from Belgium, Schibille finds all three within a common Mesopotamian tradition, but the tiles differ in base-glass characteristics, implying different local raw materials. ¹ In this Samarra differs from al-Raqqa, where no evidence of strongly coloured glass production was found. ¹