Talk:Zellij

Frumuşeni

I think the claim about the Frumuşeni mosaics in the zellige article improbable or a misunderstanding of the source:

- Huge physical distance: the zellige article claims that zellige appeared in Morocco in the 10th century. Frumuşeni is in present-day Romania, near the Hungarian border. Direct influence seems highly improbable between these two distant regions. Far more plausible to search the source of inspiration in the Middle East or Spain which had strong ties in trade with Morocco.

- Low importance: Frumuşeni doesnt't belong to the great mosaic works of art, it has some local and scientific importance because of its northern location and singularity but it's not on a par with the great mosaics of Constantinople, Venice, Sicily or Damascus. I can't imagine how this poor little northern monastery could be the source of this highly important Islamic art tradition.

- Dating and art school of the Frumuşeni mosaics are controversial. Although some sources claim that they are Byzantine and belong to the 9-10th century the majority opinion is that they were made only in the 12th century for the Catholic Bizere Monastery. Even the existence of the earlier Orthodox monastery remained unproven while Bizere certainly existed. In this case (ie. they are western works from the 12th century) zellige simply predates the Frumuşeni mosaics so they can't be the source of inspiration.

I think you should look up again the source. I can imagine that the author drew comparison between the artistic style of zellige and the Frumuşeni mosaics but in this case you should cite here the whole paragraph so we can establish its real meaning. Zello (talk) 12:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Zellij

Zellij seems to be about twice as common as the French spelling "zellige" in modern English books. Comments? In ictu oculi (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Zellige gives nearly 1.7M hits, Zellij just over 400,000. Zellige is longer established and in many sources, English and foreign. Of course all English forms like Zelige, Zellige, Zellij are approximate transliterations and there's no perfect answer. Zellige is perhaps also more likely to suggest a workable pronunciation in English (as in French). We already have alternatives in boldface with redirects so a search for Zellij (etc) also works. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:15, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, that's possible, if the reader knows French and not German, but mind if I ask how did you arrive at those results? They seem to include French books. Using "Ceramics" OR "pottery" OR "tiles" to exclude French books, we get the below:

Zellij 1240

Zellige 890

I'm just saying. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm chiming in long after here, but I work with a variety of (mostly scholarly) sources while contributing to Moroccan architecture articles and I do come across zellij more often, and not only in English; zellige seem to occur more often in older French sources. Just as importantly, though, zellij is more obvious to pronounce for English speakers than zellige; the sequence "-ge" in English is often pronounced as a velar stop (like in "get") whereas "-j" is not really ambiguous and also conveniently lines up with a lot of standard Arabic-to-English transliterations. Robert Prazeres (talk) 22:57, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I would also support a move to zellij per the points raised by Robert Prazeres and In ictu oculi. إيان (talk) 23:29, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support move to Zellij per Robert Prazeres -TheseusHeLl (talk) 23:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

November 2022

@NorthAfricanArmsDealer: Unless I'm mistaken, this is about the Cuerda seca and not the Zellij. M.Bitton (talk) 15:00, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@M.Bitton I have uploaded the page I was citing here, this seems a lot like Zellij. NorthAfricanArmsDealer (talk) 15:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it is cuerda seca, I'm not sure NorthAfricanArmsDealer (talk) 15:07, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

It may seem a lot like Zellij, just like some Roman mosaics, but the source (that I checked again) describes it as "Cuerda seca" for a reason. The same source is also used in the Cuerda seca article. M.Bitton (talk) 15:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I believe the word "zellij" in Arabic denotes tiles more broadly or is used more flexibly (maybe native speakers con confirm), but in English reliable sources this term is normally reserved for mosaic tilework specifically, which is what this article is about. (Some sources don't even use the term zellij and use other descriptive terms like "mosaic tilework" instead.) This may be leading to some confusion. Other types of tiles are mentioned in the history section merely for context and historical interest. That said, there is/was mosaic tile on the Kasbah Mosque, like the Kutubiyya Mosque, but also cuerda seca tiles with inscriptions (which are not mosaic tiles); both are discussed in that source, with the cuerda seca tiles being more interesting in the case of the Kasbah Mosque. R Prazeres (talk) 18:10, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@R Prazeres: I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting. M.Bitton (talk) 18:35, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm just clarifying what the editor may be referring to, and what's in the source. I'm in the process of trying to clarify this in the article right now, hopefully that will make the point moot. R Prazeres (talk) 19:08, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

The dynastic nonsense

@Simoooix.haddi: Now that your so-called concerns have been addressed, there is no reason for you to mess with the order (unless you're hoping to see it done in alphabetically to stop this nonsense once and for all). M.Bitton (talk) 23:30, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Origins (10th to 13th centuries)

Regarding this section, the origin of zellige in Morocco predates what was claimed that it had appeared in Tunisia in the 10th century. Take for example the Andalusian mosque in Fez which was built in 859 AD, during which we can see development of zellige, contrary to the older mosques in Tunisia, say for example Kairaouan mosque, albeit older, didn't have the zellige patterns and the explicit horse shoe arc decoration found in Andalus and in Fez in the mid 800s, it had early forms of Islamic architecture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.250.237.93 (talk) 03:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

image discussion

The imagesls below, I am thinking of incorporating into the examples section of the zellij article. I also have questions. Elinruby (talk) 06:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Elinruby (talk) 06:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I think these would be best covered elsewhere. The "zellij" being discussed in this article is mosaic tilework in particular (i.e. single-coloured pieces cut into different shapes and then assembled together). That's what the term is most usually used for in English references (not necessarily in Arabic, where I believe the word may have a more generic usage for tiles). These painted square tiles (in the images you posted) are not the same technique.

This article's history section does mention other types of tilework that replaced the traditional mosaic technique in different regions, but I think it would muddle the topic if we were to include these as part of the scope here.

At least one of the images provided here (the larger composition with the arches) is almost certainly Qallaline tiles from Tunisia (or copying that genre).

I'll leave a comment at Talk:Regency of Algiers too, where I assume this is coming from. R Prazeres (talk) 19:52, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The tiles with images on them are described as Sqifa in the file name, but categorized over at Commons together with anything about tiles; as previously mentioned there are over a hundred images of tiles but the categorization is a mess generally, with multiple "culture of Algeria" sections. I think the Tunisian image you are talking about is the one I was thinking of using, so thank you for pointing that out. pretty sure these all came out of a Wiki loves something photowalk through a museum in Algiers. Elinruby (talk) 12:09, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree with RP here. Johnbod (talk) 12:23, 19 March 2024 (UTC)