admin The always-great British Libary Asia and Africa blog shared images from a Gift to Kings / Gift to Viziers, recently purchased at auction. This tract on principles of ethics and government includes forty brief sections (bāb), each with four brief maxims, all “selected by sages from the books of the ancients”. The copy of the …
Kuh-e Khwaja is a complex 30 kilometers southwest of Zabol in the eastern part of Sistan-Baluchestan Province, very near the Afghan border. The main ruins are on the southeastern promontory of a high hill overlooking the marshes of Lake Hamun (the historical Lake of Zereh) in the delta of the ancient Hirmand River. This small …
Everyone knows about Iranian No Ruz, even though it’s now generally thought of as New Year – rather than ‘New Day’ (click here, here and here for some of my No Ruz postings). But what about Nimrouz – meaning mid-day, or noon? Now the Date Line is arbitrarily set in Greenwich; but ancient Iranian wisdom …
Last week, I found a gorgeous star site. And lots of completely lovely Iranian star pics. They made me think of Fatemeh Keshavarz ‘Jasmine and Stars’: “In Shiraz of the 1960s, where I grew up, summer nights were a journey with a few clear stops. We slept in the courtyard under a sky full of …
Since it’s coming up to my birthday, this posting is a treat for me. And for those of you who are following along with my Vis and Ramin extracts The first one of these set up Vis as something of a spoiled brat; while the second spelt out how she was matched up, Parthian-style, to …
The IHF/ BL digitisation project keeps producing treasures. A recent BL blog discussed the hybrid paintings of Muhammad Zaman ibn Hajji Yusuf Qummi (fl. 1649-1704): “famous for his figures in European dress and use of night scenes and shadows”. I’ve never much liked these hybrid pictures, but was fascinated to read a whole new way …
The British Museum has a small and very lovely exhibition on now of British fourth century silver – looking at the Great Dish from the Mildenhall treasure. There’s an intimate recreation of a late Roman dining room, with a stibadium (curved couch) for you to recline on, in exactly the right position for eating from …
I’ve already praised the eleventh century Vis and Ramin – and noted how Gorgani wasn’t afraid to have his characters show their faults. Unlike other 11th century writers (like Ferdowsi), he is not embarrassed about the Parthian traditions of endogamy – with the brother-sister marriage between Viru and Vis, and with Vis and Ramin being …
Last week, I showed you the super-expensive so-called Clark-Corcoran carpet, and commented that – with these prices – none of us are likely to be actually seeing it face-to-carpet, so to speak. There are some other carpets that are even less likely to be seen: the 17 large-format classical carpets, including the iconic white-ground Safavid …
Last week, the world’s most expensive carpet was sold at auction: at a $30 million hammer price (this goes up to $33,765,000 with Sotheby’s commission). This price was more than triple the previous record for a rug, and almost five times the high pre-auction estimate of cost. If you want to see the bidding war …