A late Mamluk or early Ottoman geometric marble mosaic panel, Egypt, probably Cairo, 15th-17th century

In the late Mamluk period, polychrome marble mosaic panelling imposed itself as the favoured decorative method, better suited to stone constructions which gradually replaced brick buildings (Williams 2018, p.30-31). These panels were inserted in the floor pavements and facades of religious buildings and palaces, transfiguring the urban landscape of late fifteenth-century Cairo (Behrens-Abouseif 2007, p.90). An example of comparable size and shape in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no.1970.327.8) was believed to adorn the lower register of a wall.

The tessellated design, consisting of six-pointed stars interlocked with polygonal shapes, was ubiquitous in late Mamluk decorative arts, adorning minbars, minarets, carpets, and book bindings. The abundance of marble, collected as war booty or recycled from older monuments, allowed for similar mosaics to remain in use in early Ottoman Cairo, while ceramic tilework prevailed in the rest of the empire (Goodwin 1977, p.26).