Pakistan · Ceramics / Architectural Craft / Tilework
کاشی (Kashi)
Kashi (کاشی — named from Kashan, Iran, the origin of the technique) is Multan's blue and white glazed tile tradition — one of the oldest continuously active tilework traditions in the world, with families in Multan's tile district tracing production to the Sultanate period (13th century CE). Multani kashi uses a specific quartz-rich clay body (biscuit) with a tin-opacified lead glaze painted in cobalt blue, turquoise, and white before a single glaze firing. The defining technical knowledge is the cobalt saturation calibration: Multani blue is a more saturated, deeper cobalt than the 'Ming blue' of Chinese porcelain — achieved by applying cobalt pigment to the unfired glaze surface in three successive layers, each applied when the previous has been absorbed but not dried. 'Absorbed but not dried' — the timing window of approximately 30-45 seconds — is the primary tacit knowledge.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Pakistan national ICH list; Multan shrines UNESCO World Heritage context
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