Trade

10th- and 11th century Jewelry

The gold used here likely came from either Nubia or Ghana. The jewelry bears relation to Byzantine jewelry, though, indicating the place of the Fatimids in a broader cultural and trade network.

An 11th-century Description

This snippet is from a Persian travelogue written by a Shi’i traveler from Khorasan (modern Tajikistan) who went on pilgrimage to Mecca via Fatimid Cairo in the 11th century. 

On the north side of the mosque [of ‘Amr b. al-‘As, in Cairo] is a market called the Lamp Market, and no one ever saw such a market anywhere else. Every sort of rare goods from all over the world can be had there. I saw tortoise-shell instruments such as small boxes, combs, knife handles, and so on. I also saw extremely fine crystal, which the master craftsmen etch most beautifully. This crystal has been imported from the Maghreb, although they say that near the Red Sea crystal even finer and more translucent than the Maghrebi variety had been found. I saw elephant tusks from Zanzibar, many of which weighed more than two hundred maunds. There was a type of skin from Abyssinia that resembled leopard, from which they make sandals. Also from Abyssinia was a domesticated bird, large with white spots and a crown like a peacock’s. Throughout Egypt is much honey and sugarcane.

Source, p. 69.

An 11th-century Ewer

This ewer was made from rock crystal, which likely came from the regions near the Indian Ocean. Such remarkable Fatimid rock crystal vessels were also found in European churches.

This Fatimid flask once belonged to the Habsburg emperor Rudolph II of Bohemia (reigned 1576-1612). The gold setting was added in Europe:

11th-century Ivories

There are several pieces of intricately carved Fatimid ivory, though several other similar pieces have not been firmly identified as southern Italy or Egypt. You can read about some of them here.