Echo (Sada) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support the generation, presentation, and preservation of contemporary Iraqi art. There’s not too much up on their new website yet, but it promises to be a useful resource.
Author Archives: Alexander Brey
Hunting and Forgetting
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This is the only case where I disagree with my namesake; I agree that the sight of the creature being found, pursued, and hunted would drive thoughts of love from the mind of a lover; but I declare that to see her caught is neither a pleasant sight nor exciting but upsetting rather. I do not think that a lover would forget his love for this.
Arrian: On Hunting, Section 16 (trans. Phillips and Willcock 1999, 111)
Thesaurus d’Épigraphie Islamique Updates
Aside
The Thesaurus d’Épigraphie Islamique was recently updated and now includes
- Issue No. 10: Inscriptions from South-East Asia (Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam)
It is now that much easier to find something like the Arabic stela excavated at Phnom Bakeng, probably carved by a local craftsman unfamiliar with the Arabic alphabet!
Arabic Stela - Phnom Bakheng
Access to the searchable database is free once you’ve created an account. The new material completes content already in the database:
- No. 1: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya
- No. 2: Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain)
- No. 3: Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan)
- Nos. 4 and 5: Egypt
- No. 6: Indian world (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives)
- Nos. 7-9: Sub-Saharan Africa, Iraq, Western Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, France)
A Converted Temple in Cappadocia?
One of the more interesting and less well-understood sites that we visited was a Byzantine church complex that appears to have been a renovation to an earlier, polytheistic temple. As I understand it, the bases of the four piers in the church are uncharacteristic of the Byzantine cave churches.
The upper part of the complex has eroded and collapsed, leaving much of it exposed. There are still several adjoining cave-rooms, but the exposed portion makes for a beautiful photosynth.