admin I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw Ahriman (as Goebbels) with serpents with the faces of Mussolini and Tojo growing out of his shoulders, egged on by Zahhak (as Hitler’s cook). Then Zahhak-Hitler dreams of the three warriors who will cause his demise (obviously: Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt). It’s all finished off by Kaveh, …
Dr Cyrus Alai – the author of the seminal books on General Maps of Persia, and Special Maps of Persia – has donated his balanced and cohesive collection of maps of Persia to SOAS – and last week was the official thankyou ceremony. There was a keynote speech, but I wanted to share some of …
I was given a copy of Vis and Ramin by a good friend of mine – thankyou! This is a wonderful book (written in the 11th century, almost certainly Parthian, and with tantalising parallels to the – later – Tristan and Iseult) Seeing as so few people seem to read it (click here or here …
Just for a change, there’s some good news from Kabul. The Mughal India exhibition that was at the British Library is now on show at the Queens Palace, in the Babur Gardens in Kabul. The Babur Gardens – with their 13 levels – include Babur’s Tomb, and the gardens and the tomb have been restored …
Stephennie Mulder sent this on H-Islamart. It is indeed terrible news “Dear Colleagues, I am heartbroken to inform you that the 11th-century minaret of the Umayyad mosque in Aleppo was destroyed yesterday. It was one of the great treasures of Islamic architecture, a restrained and elegant example of the exquisite stone-carving of medieval Syrian stonemasons. …
Identities & Islam: Material Culture, Self and Society in the Pre-Modern Muslim World was the inaugural UK Early Career Symposium on Islamic Archaeology. It was my first virtual conference: with the speakers in Southampton, and me watching at home (and others wherever they were). I wanted to share some of the points the keynote speaker, …
It’s the Islamic sales in London very soon. I usually focus on the ceramics, but this week I wanted to point out some almost-magic carpets, that you can go and see in person, if you’re near London. For example, in the Christies’ Oriental Rugs and Carpets Sale: – Lots 28 and 29 are two especially …
Lots of the work on Safavid Isfahan sees it as it is now – and not as the work-in-progress that many of the Isfahanis, and the European travellers, saw when they visited thoughout the seventeenth century. This is surely wrong! This section aims to bring out some of this – focusing especially on some less …
It’s easy to look at the beauty or historic importance of paintings – but it’s rare to find out about the men (it’s usually men) doing the painting. This week, two treats which give more than a glimpse into the craft of painters in the sixteenth century. First, Fiona McLees. Her blog article on her …
Percy Sykes is best known as spy, consul and military man in Eastern Persia. But, with a Persian author, Khan Bahadur Ahmad Din Khan, he also wrote a “second Haji Baba, which would serve as a true picture of Persia [in around 1900], before constitutional reform appeared on the horizon”. This book is an important …