Azerbaidzhan's ceramic art is no less ancient. Earthenware cauldrons excavated at Orenkala and Giandzha evidence links between the medieval potters ofAzerbaidzhan and Central Asia. Plain unglazed ware was predominant then, and only these two centers produced sumptuous bowls, dishes, vases, jugs, and lamps painted in enamels of the purest colors. Ingeniously contrived compositions were slip-painted on their walls; their motifs were similar to designs chased on Azerbaidzhani bronze and copper vessels and comprised exquisite pictures of animals and birds, hunting scenes, or scenes of galanterie bordered by plant ornamentation. The range of subjects was traditional for the medieval East, but what is striking is the variety with which these stylistically close themes are treated. Such refined art could only be the result of many generations' quests and endeavors. The reputation of many of Azerbaidzhan's architectural treasures owes. a great deal to another branch of ceramic art-the making of glazed tiles. Tiles seen on tombs dating from the fourteenth century are still amazingly fresh and bright in color and consummate in ornamental design. This period's traditions were continued in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, as exemplified by the tile panel from the seventeenth-century tomb of Sheik Sefi in Ardebil. The exquisite polychrome plumage of fantastic birds included in the panel's composition recalls fourteenth-century tilework. Likewise, the azure tiles decorating the cupola of the Imam-zadeh mausoleum built in Giandzha in the eighteenth or nineteenth century show affinity with the tile facing of a medieval mausoleum in Barda. A special place in Azerbaidzhani folk art belongs to carved tombstones, which are often shaped like a horse or sheep. On the sides of these monuments, and on rectangular stelae one can often see sculpted scenes of hunting, ploughing, or feasting; various domestic jobs and ceremonies are also portrayed. Their rendering is naively ingenuous but not devoid of poetic feeling. This figurative art stands in contrast to the traditional predilection for exquisite ornamentation, although these naively realistic scenes are primarily placed within intricately interlaced ornamental borders. Similar unusual combinations are to be found in Azerbaidzhani pile carpets, the weaving of which is one of the republic's most remarkable folk art industries. One exemplary nineteenth-century carpet is devoted to the seasons of the year. Its border is executed with a delicacy matched only by its counterpart in miniature painting. Its central part is a rather elaborate narrative of the people's daily life, the ingenuousness of which brings to mind pictures by self-taught primitivist painters. Among the earliest surviving Azerbaidzhani carpets are examples dating from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries made in Shirvan, Giandzha, and Karabakh. Their main ornamental motifs are geometric or stylized zoo-morphic and plant designs. The oldest known carpet with a narrative subject belongs to the fifteenth century. It was woven by a woman from Karabakh to illustrate the fairy tale Melik-Mammed, and it is presently the property of the Stockholm City Museum in Sweden. Knotted pile carpet-making is one of Azerbaidzhan's most widely spread folk crafts; it is practiced, there and all over the Caucasus, only by women, who learn it from childhood. There are about a hundred and fifty varieties of Azerbaidzhani carpets differentiated according to center of manufacture. They fall into three broad categories: the Kuba-Shirvan, the Giandza-Kazakh, and the Karabakh types-with great local variation of artistic and technical features. Carpets made in Azerbaidzhan were already famous in the late Middle Ages, as evidenced by some paintings by Andrea Mantegna, Carlo Crivelli, Hans Memling, Hans Holbein, Jan van Eyck, and other Western European artists. Many remarkable carpets appearing in their canvases have been attributed to the Azerbaidzhan school. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Azerbaidzhan exported its carpets on a large scale. This period can be regarded as the heyday of carpet-making in Azerbaidzhan. The carpet's high knot density enabled the weaver to produce compositions with small, delicate designs of great complexity. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the weave became coarser and consequently the ornament simpler. Nevertheless, the craft has survived to the present day; in addition to pile carpets, Azerbaidzhani weavers make flat-woven carpets, often supplementing wool with silk, gold, and silver threads. In 1967, the Carpet Museum was opened in Baku. 
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