ABSTRACT
Islamic archaeology shares with a number of other archaeological efforts the problem of concerning itself with a highly literate culture, whose history, thought and institutions are easily available through texts. From Morocco to India there are some thirty thousand monuments of Islamic architecture still standing in varying degrees of preservation. The uniquely Islamic technique of luster had been known for many decades before excavations at Samarra and at Fustat made it possible to suggest a ninth century date for the technique’s formation. An objective of Islamic archaeology consists of formal excavations that are of systematic searches for new evidence. A more challenging task of Islamic archaeology is that of trying to describe and explain the actual physical setting in which this unique culture developed. In fact, because of its youth, Islamic archaeology is in the enviable position of being able to set forth the kind of problems it ought to solve.
