Ceramic

Commerce thrived in Binket, and its residents engaged in cottage industry and agriculture. Its advantageous location on transit trade routes connected the town to different centres in the countries of the East. Maksidi, listing tradable items delivered from Chach, specifically mentioned Chach crockery. Numerous finds made in the process of contemporary construction in the old part of Tashkent provide excellent proof of intensive development of pottery manufacturing in Binket.

Creative ceramics in the 9th-11th century Binket develops in keeping with an overall rise of ceramics manufacturing on the territory of Movarounnahr in the process of formation and perfection of expressive forms of crockery and the mastering of new technological devices in the use of engobe and glazing at the time when the main decoration principles evolve, the most characteristic types of ornaments develop, and the main colour gamut is established.

However, with an apparent commonality between Binket ceramic specimen and the items created in the lead centres such as Samarqand and Khorezm, Chach crockery also features clearly traceable local peculiarities in style. These are the prevalence of white engobe that provides main background for subsequent painting and serves as one of the key elements in crockery decorum, and the presence of local ornamental motives (stellar composition). Particularly noticeable in ceramics ornamentation is the abundance of zoomorphic motives reflecting close proximity of sedentary and nomadic cultures of Chach oasis.

Zoomorphic themes have already been discussed both in monograph publications about Chach ceramics and in separate articles on the subject. Based on the previous research one may notice that the world of living creatures prevailed in medieval ceramics: birds and fishes, gazelles and frogs, rams and camels, lions and snow leopards