I recently started a library job, working on acquiring & cataloguing books in Arabic & Persian. I've been doing classification (assigning shelf marks) according to the Library of Congress system & I'm fast learning that, like the museum, the library is not neutral... 🧵 The LC (@librarycongress) provides handy charts to help librarians decide how to classify books according to their subject matter, to determine where they sit in the library, but it's not as simple as you might think...

I really am mad about tiles, but I'm also mad (yes, in the other sense) at museums continuing to capitalise off these tiles with no discussion of why they are no longer in situ. Here follows a slightly rambling discussion on tiles from Iran, provenance etc etc 🧵

https://twitter.com/V_and_A/status/1411248642518814720

First, let's look at the objects one by one. This tile is probably from the Timurid madrasa in Khargird (c.1444). I think this must be the one in the Sarikhani Collection (purchased 2006). More on the site here: archnet.org/sites/4726 and a similar tile: collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O108133/t…

A question for the Iranian Studies crowd:
Does anybody read the Cambridge History of Iran anymore? Do you put it on your reading lists? Would you ever cite it? I just saw that there's an Encyclopaedia Iranica article on the Cambridge History of Iran which is kind of meta:
iranicaonline.org/articles/cambr…

Popped to the Ashmolean yesterday to see the refurbished Ancient Middle East Gallery. First: I *love* the blue. Second: it's great to see an interrogation of how the collection was assembled in the past & commitment to responsible collecting in the present. (Short thread ⬇️) One of the first cases you see on entering the AME gallery explores 'Claiming the Past'. It does a good job of demonstrating how history, archaeology, collecting, and museums played a role in colonisation.

It's not uncommon for the women depicted in Qajar paintings to be tattooed, but this is WILD. She also has little posies of flowers tucked into her clothing.
A very short thread on tattoos and Qajar painting... Here's another example of 'khalkubi' (tattooing) from the Hermitage, recently posted by @AMMoslehi. This one seems to be blue, so was probably executed with indigo.

https://twitter.com/AMMoslehi/status/1405257501000536064?s=20

This has to be one of the most exciting conference programmes I have ever seen! Please share far and wide as it's all online (19-23 July) and all free.
vam.ac.uk/event/ZXZZjyXo… And tune in on the Friday for your 19th-century fix.

Today I'm obsessed with these really remarkable paintings from 17th-century Iran, now in the Royal Collection, and looking resplendent after recent conservation. You can now read all about them in their online catalogue entries:
rct.uk/collection/407…
rct.uk/collection/407… I saw them before conservation and they were fantastic then but I can't wait to see them again (they will be in the V&A's Epic Iran exhibition). Emily Hannam, Assistant Curator of Islamic & South Asian Collections at the RCT, has done great work getting them out into the world.

Recently I had one of those moments which researchers live for when the stars aligned and all the pieces suddenly fell into place, so here is a short thread about a eunuch, his tomb, and how architectural inscriptions were produced in 19th-century Iran... The V&A holds a unique collection of 19th-c. architectural drawings, known as the Mirza Akbar drawings, purchased in the 1870s from a couple of builders working on the British embassy in Tehran. They provide a very rare glimpse into the history of architectural practice in Iran.

This remarkable embroidered tent from 19th-century Iran, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, has been popping up on social media quite a bit over the last few days, so I thought I'd do a thread on it to brighten the twitter feeds this weekend... It was made for Muhammad Shah, the second ruler of Iran's Qajar dynasty, who reigned from the death of his grandfather, Fath-ʿAli Shah, in 1834, until his own death in 1848.

In the Qur'an & Bible, Zulaykha/Potiphar's wife never gets to consummate her love for Yusuf/Joseph, but in Jami's C15th version, there is a happier ending and they marry - here's a depiction of that moment in a manuscript from C16th Shiraz. (Now in British Library.) 1/5... The technicality which permits this is that, according to Jami, Zulaykha's first husband (aka Potiphar) wasn't able to consummate their marriage:
'He will not be able to open your silver lock,
for his key will be as soft as wax...
And lead cannot do the work of a diamond.' 2/5

In class today, I was teaching the inscription on the Ardabil Carpet - it is this text which makes it the earliest dated carpet to survive. Seeing as there should be way more carpet content on Twitter, I thought I'd share it here too! (1/7) #carpetcontent The first two lines are a couplet by Hafez:
جز آستان توام در جهان پناهی نیست
سر مرا بجز این در حواله گاه نیست
Except for your threshold, I have no refuge in the world.
Except for this door, my head has no resting-place. (2/7)

Today, I've been writing a bit on Sultan Murad Mirza Husam al-Saltana (1817-1883), a governor of Khurasan. There's a wonderful portrait of him, so I thought I'd do a thread on some of the notable features of the painting to bring some Qajar style to your timeline this evening... The artist is Abu'l-Hasan Ghaffari (1814-66), 'naqqashbashi' (head-painter) at Nasir al-Din Shah's court. He painted some of the most iconic works of the era. You might be thinking it all looks a bit staged - this is because he often painted from photos, rather than from life.

#Ramadan2020 is on the way, but I've recently been reading a bit about Ramadan in the early-19th century in Iran. I think most non-Muslims probably associate Ramadan with not eating, but what about not smoking your shisha (qaliyan) or opium pipe? The shisha pipe was pretty much a permanent fixture of life in early Qajar Iran. It was smoked everywhere and at anytime - from when in the mosque, to while on horseback. Fath-ʿAli Shah is often depicted with his pipe at his side.

It's #Nowruz tomorrow, and as many won't be able to celebrate as normal, I thought I'd use a thread to take us all back to Nowruz Fath-ʿAli Shah style (this related by George Fowler in his 1841 'Three Years in Persia'). As you can imagine, there was lots of ceremony, and it would be a v v long thread if I mentioned it all, so this will just be some highlights. But, first, a quick note on the timing of the festival, which Fowler clearly appreciates:

We're seeing lots of reports regarding continued pilgrimage to #Qom, despite the #coronavirus outbreak there. It's horrible to watch Iran go through yet another crisis, but I also can't help but think about the historical parallels. Pilgrimage & contagious diseases have history, and many of the 19th century sources I use in my research on these shrines mention disease, so here is a (brief) long view on pilgrimage in the time of #Corvid19