DYNASTIC IMAGERY IN EARLY TIMURID WALL PAINTING

painting's role in the Islamic Iranian context is the evidence of wall painting. Often accorded a status equal to that of manuscript illustration, its material remains are scarce, and it is literary evidence that in large part has fashioned current notions of the function, extent, and significance of painting programs on interior wall surfaces. Past general studies have not only repeatedly stressed the continuity of this ancient practice from the Sasanian period into the Qajar era, but have also viewed it as a formal extension of manuscript painting.' Earlier investigations focused on pre-Mongol or later Safavid examples, but what is less well known is the evidence from those centuries when a variety of TurcoMongol military dynasties held sway over the medieval Iranian cultural area, a period of accelerated activity for the development of Persian painting. Meager physical evidence, particularly from a royal, secular context, and the seeming absence of the human form have obviously accounted for much of this gap. What still remains to be examined is the evidence of