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The Fate of the Samarra Finds
At the end of the second campaign Herzfeld’s find lists recorded 1161 items, but many of these describe groups of finds: stucco wall revetments; wall paintings; architectural details carved from marble and alabaster; and carved and painted woodwork; small finds, such as a substantial quantity of ceramics and glass objects; objects in marble, steatite, wood and mother-of-pearl.
One group of finds was shipped to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. According to Friedrich Sarre, this shipment consisted of about 100 panels of carved and moulded stucco. Another shipment was sent to the Imperial Museums in Istanbul. However, the greater part of the finds were packed into wooden crates, and stored at Samarra. In 1917, these crates were put into safekeeping by the British Army and shipped to London where they were brought to the British Museum. There in 1921 a commission was established in order to distribute the finds among different museums and collections. As a result, shares were given to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, while a large number of finds remained in the British Museum. The commission also decided to distribute finds to other international collections with holdings of Islamic art. Among these institutions were the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, the French Archaeological Institute in Damascus, the Museum for Applied Arts in Copenhagen, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and in the USA, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Michigan State University Museum in Ann Arbor/Detroit, and the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Stucco wall revetment, I. Samarra style or 'Style C'
Berlin, Museum of Islamic Art (SMB)
Iraq, Samarra, German Samarra Expediton 1911, 'House III'
Abbasid period, middle of 3rd / 9th century
Photo: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 1922
© Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin (SMB)
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