Yearly Archives: 2011

Wadi el Hasa, beyond the Lithic

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For a landscape archaeology seminar I’m working my way through material from a survey of Wadi el Hasa by Burton MacDonald et al. I’m especially interested in the medieval and early modern material, in particular whether the seventh century conquest is visible in the archaeological record and how it manifests itself. They found almost no early Islamic material in the area they surveyed, but this goes largely uncommented in a final publication that is focused on significantly earlier periods.

So far I’ve entered potsherd data (site, number of samples, number of sherds) for all of the sites dated from the Byzantine period up to the present into one google doc spreadsheet, and all the site data (location, classification) for the Byzantine period into another. I still need to enter the site data for post-Byzantine sites, but I wanted to get started working on a Processing program to visualize, and eventually analyze this information.

So far, all it does is map the sites, pulling data (only for site location, and therefore currently only for the Byzantine period) dynamically from the google doc when it starts running, and displays them in a 3d environment which you can navigate with the mouse. Hopefully it will do much more, but for two days of data entry and two days of programming (slow learning) it’s not bad:

Elevations

Elevations

Overhead

Overhead

Perspectival

Perspectival

The red dot is located in the south-eastern corner, and greener points are lower in elevation, while bluer points are higher.

You can access the site location data in this googledoc spreadsheet.

Photosynth

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I travelled to Jordan last summer for the Bir Madhkur archaeological excavation in Wadi Araba. While I was there I took a lot of pictures, with the intention of assembling them into a 3D model using Microsoft’s free webapp Photosynth, which I first discovered via the extremely useful AnthSpace@PSU blog written by Nathan M. Craig.

To view them, you may need to install Silverlight, which is free but only compatible with certain versions of certain operating systems (it’s a pain, I know, but they’re pretty fantastic).

Check out Qusayr Amra:

And the Basilica of St. Theodore (I think) at Jarash:

You can find all of my photosynths here:
http://photosynth.net/userprofilepage.aspx?user=alexbrey

Persian Illuminated Manuscripts

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The HIAA listserv has been abuzz with people seeking images of miniatures for the study of the Shahnameh and Persian MSS in general. The recommondations are listed below. There are a few I’m not sure how to categorize, but the rest fall under Shahnameh Projects, Museums, Libraries, and Subject guides.

SUBJECT GUIDES:

McGill
http://www.mcgill.ca/library/library-findinfo/subjects/humanities/islamic/manuscripts/

UCLA
http://guides.library.ucla.edu/content.php?pid=22907&sid=997329

Archivalia list of Islamic MSS online
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/11445658/

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SHANAMEH PROJECTS

Cambridge Shahnameh Project
http://shahnama.caret.cam.ac.uk/new/jnama/page/

Shahnameh Project at Princeton University
http://etcweb.princeton.edu/shahnama/start.epl

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MUSEUMS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database
Instructions: A search under the category Islamic art brings up 12,350 items. Refining the search can be tricky “miniature” brings up 15 items “painting” brings up 313 items (most but not all from manuscripts) “manuscript” brings up 712 items (not all of them illuminated), “codices” brings up 1,169 items (most entries with scanned images of at least a few pages)

The Freer/Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian (Washington)
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/search.cfm

Fitzwilliam Museum on the Epic of Persian
King: the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi
http://www.iranheritage.org/shahnameh_of_ferdowsi/default.htm
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/shahnameh/vgallery/section1.html

Museum of Fine Arts Boston
http://www.mfa.org/search/collections?culture=7764&objecttype=10

Harvard Art Museums
http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collection/

The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, Md.)
http://art.thewalters.org/viewgallery.aspx?id=1254
(scans of 58 complete Islamic manuscripts, viewable cover-to-cover &
downloadable)
http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/
http://poetryprayer.thewalters.org/

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
http://www.lacma.org/collection/index.html

Asia Society
Temporary exhibition: A Prince’s Manuscript Unbound: Muhammad Juki’s Shahnamah

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LIBRARIES

Princeton University Library – Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts
http://library.princeton.edu/projects/islamic/index.html

Harvard University Library – Islamic Heritage Project
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ihp/manuscripts.html
(scans of more than 280 complete Islamic manuscripts, viewable cover-to-cover & downloadable)

University of Michigan Library – Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan
http://www.lib.umich.edu/islamic/

The British Library’s “Images Online” database
http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/
Instructions: search using keywords (e.g. Persian – 156 images; Nizami – 60 images; Shahnama – 45 images; etc.). Registering on the website allows access to non water-marked preview images. Images are of selected pages; no whole manuscripts.

The Institute of Ismaili Studies
www.iis.ac.uk
Gallery
Useful links

Yale University Library
http://www.library.yale.edu/neareast/exhibitions/exhibit20071.html

The Vatican Library
Online Catalogues
Digitization project information

Bodleian Library
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/OrientalSelectMSS2.htm

Bibliothèque nationale de France (B.n.F.) Mandragore, database of illuminated manuscripts of the B.n.F.
http://mandragore.bnf.fr/jsp/rechercheExperte.jsp
Instructions: A search under country of origin (nom de pays): Iran turns up 185 manuscripts from Iran (incl. Arabic and Armenian MSS as well as
Persian), each one represented by multiple images of illuminated pages. It may be easier to navigate through the “Classement thematique” link. Search is by shelfmark or by keyword. For searching the database, keep in mind that French romanization differs from the Anglo-American usage:
Persian: French romanization: Chamseh
English romanization: Khamsa(h)
Clicking on the option “plein ecran” allows one to see full-screen versions of the images.

Chester Beatty Library
http://www.cbl.ie/
Temporary exhibition: Heroes and Kings of the Shahnama

BORN-DIGITAL ARCHIVES
That is, I think the archives are born-digital, not their content.

Asnad.org Digital Persian Archives
http://www.asnad.org

E-Corpus
www.e-corpus.org
Tazkira of Shaykh Safi al-Din of Ardabil (Iran, Shiraz, Safavid)
Nigaristan by Ghaffari (Safavid)
http://www.e-corpus.org/search/index.php
Instructions: you can search by languages of documents. A new version of e-corpus will be available at the beginning of March with additions and refinements.

Details from Princeton Islamic MSS., no. 56G. Page 173:2, Rustam, Zal before Kay Khusraw. Featured image from History of Nigaristan, Illuminated Frontispiece, Walters Art Museum, Ms W.598, fol. 1b