Workshops

Princes, Dervishes, and Dragons: Exploring Safavid Painted Tiles at ROM

Robert B. J. Mason (PhD., U. of Oxford, 1994) is an archaeologist, anthropologist, art-historian, geologist, and materials scientist with a particular area of specialisation in the material culture and archaeology of the Middle East and Europe during the Islamic and Mediaeval periods (roughly 500 AD to the present). His archaeological fieldwork was based in Syria from 1998 until 2009, particularly in the citadel of Aleppo, and since 2004 at the monastery of St. Moses (Deir Mar Musa). The monastery, 90 km north of Damascus in the mountainous Syrian desert, was the focus of Dr. Mason's survey of the site and its environs, recording features possibly as early as the Neoloithic. Research at the monastery led to a growing research interest in the archaeology of Christianity and monotheism generally in the Holy Land. Ceramics and vitreous materials are Mason's primary area of analytical research, particularly the high-technology glazed ceramics made in the Middle East between c. 650 and 1700 AD and he is an authority in the application of petrographic analysis, a geological technique used to identify minerals and ultimately, where pottery was made. Robert Mason was also responsible for the collections database and provision of cataloguing for the Egyptian, Far Eastern, Greek & Roman, and West Asian collections at ROM, and is appointed as an Associate Professor at the Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Department, University of Toronto.