Hand-painted blues, earthy greens, a swirl of tulips and star geometry. Palestinian ceramics have always been a conversation between land and soul.
And while the story of glazed tile-making as we know it today began around 500 years ago, during the renovations of Jerusalem under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the region's love of decorative surfaces goes back much further.
From Byzantine mosaics to early Islamic inlay, Palestine has long held a reverence for pattern, colour, and meaning. But it was in the 16th century, with the arrival of Ottoman aesthetics, that ceramic tilework began to flourish into the form we now recognise, evolving over centuries into a unique blend of Ottoman finesse, Armenian craftsmanship, and Palestinian heart.
The Foundations
Mosaic and Tilework Before the Ottomans
Long before ceramic tile-making as we know it took root, Palestine was already adorned with intricate surface art. During the Byzantine period (4th–7th century CE), the region was famous for its mosaics, tiny hand-cut stone or glass tesserae arranged into geometric and floral patterns across churches, homes, and bathhouses. Sites like Hisham’s Palace in Jericho still bear exquisite mosaic floors that speak to the aesthetic tastes and craftsmanship of the time.
Interesting Fact: The mosaic at Hisham’s Palace in Jericho includes the famous "Tree of Life" panel, depicting a lion attacking a gazelle beneath a tree—a powerful symbol of paradise and political might.
"Palestine’s floor mosaics were once called ‘the carpets of stone’ woven not with threads, but meaning."
With the arrival of Islamic rule in the 7th century, these traditions were preserved and transformed. The earliest Islamic architecture in Palestine, like the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the original Dome of the Rock, used both mosaics and painted tiles for spiritual and symbolic expression, featuring Qur'anic inscriptions, vegetal motifs, and geometric designs.
These early experiments with pattern, symmetry, and sacred symbolism laid the foundation for the glazed tile tradition that would bloom centuries later under Ottoman influence.
The Spark
Ottoman Elegance in 16th-Century Jerusalem
When Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the grand restoration of Jerusalem’s sacred sites in the 1500s, he did more than commission architecture, he planted the seed of a centuries-long craft.
The Dome of the Rock was crowned with brilliant Ottoman tiles: arabesques in cobalt blue, turquoise blossoms, and geometry that danced across the façade. These weren’t just for beauty; they were symbols of power, devotion, and celestial perfection. And they spoke to a region ready to absorb and reinterpret those forms.
From that point forward, tile-making in Jerusalem began to root itself as an artform, evolving with every passing hand.
“Tiles don’t just cover walls; they declare who holds power over them.”
– Anonymous Ottoman chronicler
The Revivial
Armenian Craftsmanship and Colour
Fast forward to 1919, when three Armenian master potters, David Ohannessian among them, were invited to restore the city’s fading tilework. They brought with them techniques from Kütahya, a town famed for its ceramics in the Ottoman Empire.
What they established in Jerusalem was not just repair, it was a revival. Their studios in the Armenian Quarter began to produce luminous tiles: swirling vines, peacocks, floral sprays, and the rich colours of cobalt, coral red, emerald, and mustard. They trained new artisans and seeded a renaissance of ceramic work across Palestine.
Their works were often bold yet refined: tulips, cypress trees, peacocks, and medallions, painted in radiant cobalt blue, coral red, emerald green, and mustard yellow.
Interesting Fact: Ohannessian and many others arrived after fleeing the Armenian Genocide. They carried their art, trauma, and tools to Jerusalem, reviving the city’s ceramic scene from scratch.
“We brought only what we could carry. Clay, colour, and memory.”
– Descendant of the Ohannessian family
A Palestinian Palette
Hebron’s Artistic Heartbeat
By the mid-20th century, families in Hebron had taken up the brush. They absorbed the influences of Ottoman elegance and Armenian finesse but shaped it into something unmistakably Palestinian.
Hebron ceramics began featuring bold brushwork, confident colours, and patterns that felt both ancient and local. Olive branches reached across plates and trays, symbolising peace and resilience. Pomegranates exploded with life, fertility, abundance, and memory of the land. Geometric stars, like the Star of Bethlehem, anchored the designs in place and meaning.
Unlike industrialised ceramics, every tile, plate, and tray in Hebron is still made using time-honoured methods. Clay is mixed and moulded by hand. Patterns are drawn freehand, never traced. Each piece is painted using natural oxides and glazes, then fired in traditional kilns, sometimes built in the very backyards of family homes.
Interesting Fact: During the 1970s–80s, Hebron artists began adding inscriptions like “Handmade in Palestine” as a quiet act of resistance and pride.
"Every time you write 'Palestine' on a plate, it stays written."
– Hebron artisan, 1983
The results: no two items are the same and each one tells a story.
Palestinian Tilework
Symbolism
In Palestinian tile-making, flowers are never just flowers. Each petal carries a whisper of history, identity, and hope.
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Tulips - A favourite in Ottoman designs, tulips came to symbolise divine perfection and paradise. For Palestinians, the tulip is both an aesthetic nod and a metaphor for beauty that persists, even in exile.
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Olive Branches – Deeply rooted in Palestinian culture, the olive is the ultimate symbol of endurance. It speaks to a people who have remained steadfast, season after season.
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Pomegranates – Found in Islamic, Christian, and Jewish art, the pomegranate is a fruit of abundance and spiritual wholeness. It often adorns Hebron ceramics as a quiet affirmation of plenty, even in scarcity.
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Daisies and Wildflowers – These represent the native flora of the land - plants that grow wild across hills and valleys, reminding us that Palestine’s beauty is not cultivated, but organic, persistent, and everywhere.
Bonus Symbols:
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Cypress Trees: Immortality and mourning
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Stars: Divine perfection, celestial guidance
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Fish: Abundance and fertility
“To hold a tile from Palestine is to hold a protest, a prayer, and a poem burned at 1,000 degrees and glazed with history.”
Why We Keep Telling This Story
When you hold a ceramic tray from Hebron, you’re not just holding a beautiful object, you’re holding a story. Of inherited skill passed down through generations. Of art that has defied occupation, restriction, and the industrial march of sameness.
At SPINDLE, we’re proud to work directly with artisans in Hebron whose hands still carry these legacies. The trays we offer are painted, fired, and framed by these makers and are part of that uninterrupted chain.
Explore our range of Palestinian tiled trays. Each tray tells a story. Let it speak from your table. Let it remind you that art, especially in Palestine, is always more than décor... its memory, culture, and resistance, tile by tile.