East Islamic Pottery in the Czech Lands Východoislámská keramika v českých zemích Karel Nováček The study attempts to identify two finds of East Islamic pottery from the Middle Ages in the Czech Lands. It is highly likely that both pieces are standard early stonepaste wares of Syrian provenance whose occur- rence in the Czech Lands can be linked to a period with increased contact between Central Europe and Palestine in the 12 th – 1 st half of 13 th century. Unlike Syrian glass and its imitations, Levant pottery did not become goods with powerful, socially distinct or self-identifying symbolism; to the contrary, the role of isolated pottery imports remained limited to the sphere of “social memory”. Islamic faience – Syria – consumption behaviour – social memory – social archaeology Studie se pokouší o identifikaci dvou dosavadních nálezů předovýchodní keramiky ve středověkých českých zemích. V obou případech se s velkou pravděpodobností jedná o standardní fajánse syrské, resp. předo- východní provenience, jejichž výskyt v Čechách lze zřejmě spojit s obdobím zvýšeného kontaktu mezi střed- ní Evropou a Palestinou ve 12. až 1. pol. 13. století. Na rozdíl od syrského skla a jeho napodobenin se levantská keramika nestala zbožím se silnou sociálně distinktivní či sebeidentifikační symbolikou; role izolovaných keramických importů zřejmě zůstala omezena na sféru tzv. sociální paměti. islámská fajáns – Sýrie – spotřební chování – sociální paměť – sociální archeologie The Czech Lands are not a territory with frequently published finds of exotic medieval pot- tery; this is not only true for pottery from the Near East, which will be addressed in greater detail in this paper, 1 but also for Italian majolica (Velímský 1973) and Spanish pottery (Charvát 2003). Nevertheless, similar remarkable finds are in fact made, and it is necessary to study their testimonial value in the context of finds in neighbouring countries. The repre- sentativeness of the overall find picture remains the basic issue; in other words, whether the isolated occurrence of these artefacts truly reflects the nearly complete absence of exotic pottery in our medieval setting. We assume that the elite environment of patrician urban properties and castles, where finds of this type could reasonably be expected, has not been significantly neglected by excavation. Yet, we are not able to rule out the possibility that the insufficient publication of this research contributes fundamentally to the “invisibility” of exotic pottery; 2 a great reserve in the research of exotic pottery can be assumed in par- ticular in the castle environment, where the share of unprocessed finds is enormous. 1 We consider as useful in the following text to separate pottery imports from Islamic lands into East Islamic (lands from Egypt to central Asia) and West Islamic (from Al-Andalus and Maghreb). “Islamic” is used here as the cul- tural-geographic designation of territories with a long-term dominant Muslim population and does not carry any religious connotation. 2 Certain types of Near East pottery could be – especially if they are in a fragmented condition – relatively easily mistaken for indigenous post-medieval wares and could be considered to be infiltrated artefacts in Medieval assem- blages. Archeologické rozhledy LXIII–2011 608–620 608