PhD Valentina Laviola, University of Naples "L’Orientale", Department of Asia, Africa and Mediterranean

Post-doctoral Research Fellowship (2018-2021)

La decorazione architettonica in mattone cotto e in stucco rinvenuta a Ghazni dalla Missione Archeologica Italiana in Afghanistan: un progetto archeologico e storico-artistico

[The Architectural Decoration in Brickwork and Stucco Retrieved in Ghazni by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan]

The project concerns a corpus counting about 4,000 finds including brickwork, stucco, and a combination of the two materials, retrieved in Ghazni by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan during the fieldwork performed from 1957 until 1978. Very few were found in situ. The materials are currently housed in different institutions across Afghanistan and Italy.

The majority of finds composed, along with marble, the architectural decoration of the Ghaznavid royal palace (11th-12th c.) thus this study will contribute to the understanding of the palatine decoration in use in the Iranian area. Other finds belonged to different buildings of the Medieval Ghazni.

The analysis proceeds from a typological and morphological classification toward the functional interpretation, and a tentative re-location of finds considering measures and proportions between elements, rooms of provenance and possible combinations. The project avails itself of the latest reconstructive hypotheses concerning the planimetric evolution of the Ghaznavid royal palace with the purpose of identifying the chronological changes occurred in its decoration as well.