The study of Islamic pottery is often hampered by the lack of information from archaeological excavations. Although there are certainly a number of sites in Mesopotamia and Persia that are well documented and provide some insight, as a whole, the finds are not conclusive enough to provide a complete picture of the earliest periods of the Islamic ceramics industry. However, it is known that the Chinese ceramics industry played an influential role in the development of various shapes, styles and decorations of Islamic pottery from the early Abbasid period all the way through to the Ottoman period. Early Abbasid ceramics from the 9th and 10th century AD such as splashed wares, green wares and white wares are very closely related to those of the Tang empire (AD 618-907). Such major external influences inspired potters throughout Islamic history to develop their own styles and techniques, using whatever materials and resources were available to them. One key exception to this is perhaps the production of lustreware, which in contrast, developed indigenously using techniques derived from glass workers who in turn, likely acquired their own knowledge of fusing alloys, metal and quartz as a form of decoration from metalworkers.