Category Archives: museum studies

Blogging the V&A Samarra Material

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A new blog, Samarra finds from the Herzfeld Excavation in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is making public the research process of cataloging the Samarra material held by the V&A.

As the site says,

“In 2013, BISI funded a pilot project to research, catalogue, photograph and conserve the V&A’s collections of material excavated by Ernst Herzfeld at Samarra in 1911-1913. This complements related projects underway at the Museum für Islamische Kunst (Berlin) and the Freer-Sackler Gallery (Washington DC), and feeds into a bigger international collaboration to reunite Herzfeld’s Samarra finds. This blog charts the discoveries we hope to make along the way.”

Primarily written by Mariam Rosser-Owen and Rosalind Wade Haddon, the blog offers a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of an academic research undertaking. Here’s to hoping that more projects start to offer this kind of transparency!

Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia

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The new galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia have opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and reviews are popping up everywhere. Check out what people have to say:

The New York Times also has a really nice interactive special with panoramas and audio commentary, and the MSNBC photoblog has some good pictures of the new galleries.

For more on the Moroccan Courtyard check out this New York Times article.