Major Herbert Sawyer was an Indian Army officer who, in 1890, carried out a geographical-military reconnaissance in West Persia, including a mapping of the Bakhtiari territories. Even though a detailed version of his map was publicly available in 1894 (click here and scroll down); copies in the India Office collection (now in the British Library) …
Dr Elisabeth Macbean Ross (author of the renowned ‘A Lady Doctor in Bakhtiariland’) was the physician for the “Bibis or great ladies, wives, sisters and mothers of the leading [Bakhtiari] Khans” for around four years from 1910. She usually visited each of the many “Gha[l]ehs or castles” for several weeks, and there “enjoyed the almost …
This week, an amazing old Negah video showing all the stages of Ghalam-kari (also called qalamkari or wood-block printing), including the preparation of the cloth [@ 2.50 minutes], the first rinse [3.00], the printing [3.40 and 6.30]; and the carving of the blocks [5.55]. The video says [1.00] that the craft started in the time …
Some of you may already have noticed that UNESCO inscribed the Sheikh Safi al-din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil on its World Heritage list on 31 July 2010. In the citation, it was described as a “rare ensemble of medieval Islamic architecture”; incorporating a route to reach the shrine of Sheikh Safi “divided into …
John Cartwright, always called ‘The Preacher’ despite never having been recorded as doing any preaching, is one of the lesser known travellers in the Persia of Shah Abbas. Usefully for me, finding out about Isfahan and Shah Abbas at or before the time the 1000km walk started in 1601, Cartwright left England in April 1600. …
Recently I introduced you to Sattara Khanum, and her husband Jaffer Kuli Khan (Sitara and Ja’far Quli Khan in Lorimer’s translated Duraki/Behdarwand poem). The puzzle in the posting this week is a salutary lesson in careful reading of transliterated names and also, perhaps, in not believing everything that even the most renowned authors write – …
This week – something special for my Bakhtiari subscribers. An extra welcome to you all! My posting on Bakhtiari poetry recitations mentioned how the people and places in one of the poems on this website (on the battle of the Duraki and Behdarwand) are, according to their translator DLR Lorimer, traceable in Henry Layard’s book …
Can I this week share some 1930s aerial photos of Iran from the Oriental Institute in Chicago – and juxtapose them with the Google Earth satellite images (still aerial of course, just from a little higher up!) that I used when identifying and double-checking locations for the stopping places along the thousand kilometre walk of …
The famous Bakhtiari lion gravestones were recorded by the earliest of the European travellers (the line-drawing below was published in 1891) – and they are now being analysed and recorded more formally. When I very first saw them, at dusk on the way northwards from Lali up into the mountains, I was SO excited – …
I’ve been re-reading Henry Layard’s 1887 ‘Early Adventures in Persia’; after I noticed that this apparently included identifying details of the events and individuals in one of the Bakhtiari poems translated by DLR Lorimer. I was especially interested by Layard’s descriptions of Bakhtiari poetry recitations: “I frequently witnessed . . the effect which poetry had …