Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to take information about daily life in an early society from what people used and built, and to describe some of that daily life, such as how water was kept and drunk. The curriculum asks for a few societies, including a First Nation and an Inuit society; the museum offers one medieval Islamic example, an Iranian city's clay jars and the public fountains called sabils, so your class must bring the other societies and their visual evidence. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- A3.2 demonstrate the ability to extract information on daily life in a few early societies, including at least one First Nation and one Inuit society, from visual evidence […]
- A3.3 describe significant aspects of daily life in a few early societies, including at least one First Nation and one Inuit society […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
What can a thing tell us that a book does not?
Look at the expectations: they ask you to read daily life from visual evidence and to describe it. For each object or building, ask what it was for, who used it every day, and what it cannot show.
Go deeper
In early Nishapur, Wilkinson writes, every house had large pitchers that held water and small ones to drink from, and the pitchers kept the water cool by evaporation in a hot, dry land 2. A sabil was a charitable building endowed to give people fresh water every day all year round 3. Al-Haddad says sabils received great care in their siting, building and decoration, and in the many endowments that kept them working 3.
Think about it
Each house had its own water pitchers, and a town could also have a sabil that gave water to people. Why might a town want a sabil for everyone, even though houses had their own pitchers?
Into the museum
- The sabil: how it was built, where its water came from, and the endowments that kept it working.
- Unglazed earthenware: the jars and pitchers in which households stored their water.
Try this
Read the records on unglazed earthenware and on the sabil. Draw one day in a household that has to store and fetch its water, and label each thing the household uses.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Unglazed earthenware (early Islamic Iran) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Jars and pitchers in an Iranian city. In early Islamic Nishapur, writes Wilkinson, unglazed pottery served for cooking and above all for storing water: storage jars, large pitchers holding water in every house, and small pitchers to drink from. He sees its chief interest in revealing aspects of life neither described in early Islamic literature nor, given the scarcity of painting, pictured. Its pitchers kept water cool by evaporation in a hot, dry land. What can a water jar tell you about a household?
In your own words: what does Sabil (public water fountain) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Fresh water for everyone. Al-Haddad counts sabils an important branch of civil building, falling under charitable buildings or foundations, endowed to give people fresh water every day all year round. They drew water from wells, pools and springs, or from rain and floods through channels or pipes. Who provides drinking water in your town, and how?
I can now
Notes
- 1. The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 (2023)
- 2. Charles K. Wilkinson, Nishapur: Pottery of the Early Islamic Period (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973), p. 332
- 3. Muhammad Hamza Isma'il al-Haddad, al-Asbila fi al-'imara al-islamiyya bi-Makka al-Mukarrama wa-l-Madina al-Munawwara (2004), p.9