Terminology for pottery: matching names for Islamic ceramics from al-Andalus (Portugal and Spain). Os nomes das loiças. Ensaio de harmonização terminológica na cerâmica islâmica do al-Andalus

Abstract

Since its inception in 2008, the Islamic Ceramics from Gharb al-Andalus Study Group (CIGA) has been particularly concerned with the terminology employed to designate ceramic forms in academic literature, in particular to create consensus within the scientific community. Given the lack of standardization, a thesaurus is proposed here. A separate problem is to determine which terms to adopt in other languages, a practice nowadays regarded as mandatory and no doubt necessary for the wider dissemination of research. To facilitate this, the thesaurus includes a multi-lingual terminology for Islamic ceramics, which should be understood only as a proposal and a resource to be used by other researchers, eventually to be adopted by translators of technical texts on the subject.