“Wine verses” on khums of the 12th century from the settlement of Shodmalik-ota

Abstract

Arabographic inscriptions on large ceramic dishes of the Muslim period have not yet been found and have not been published, except for a few cases with manufacturers' stamps. In this article, for the first time in Central Asian archaeology, the texts on the rims of three khums of the second half of the 12^th century, found in different years at the site of Shodmalik-ota (Tashkent region), are studied and interpreted. All inscriptions belong to the genre of the so-called "wine poetry". The authors suggested reading and translating these poems with the necessary comments, as well as analyzing the texts from the point of view of the ideology of the handicraft "settlement" of the pre-Mongolian city, a topic that rarely becomes the subject of research. The authors focus on two main questions: is it possible to interpret these ruba‘i “directly”, that is, as an open chanting of wine as a “healer of the soul”, despite religious restrictions? Or should these verses be considered in a metaphorical sense, as a consequence of the influence of the ideology of Sufism, in which the genres of "wine poetry" acquired a figurative meaning, changing the semantics of descriptions of a drunken state as a "response of the soul" to the knowledge of the True (God)? There is no preference for one or another interpretation in the article, and the authors believe that one did not exclude the other, referring to a number of archaeological finds of wine presses in Central Asia during the era of the “Muslim Renaissance”, as well as reports from a number of sources indicating that the consumption of wine remained a “hidden tradition” in different strata of society, despite religious restrictions.