What is stonepaste, and why was this material so important in the development of glazed pottery across the Islamic world? This talk considers a Medieval glazed stonepaste bowl from the Tushingham collection and looks at the ways in which the form and decoration were...

Why would anyone choose to form a ceramic vessel by hand when it is easier and quicker to make it on a potter’s wheel? This talk looks at two handmade pottery vessels from medieval Jordan and considers what the technological and visual characteristics might tell us...

What unusual substance was used to make this painting? This talk considers a monochrome painting on paper made in 2005, and discusses the cultural significance of the substance used in the paint.Figure 1.Painting on paper by Sameer Tanbur. Hama, 2005. Private...

Why is a cotton sheet made in the Syrian city of Hama decorated with images of waterwheels? This talk discusses the visual characteristics of this simple textile and explores the links that can be made between the repeated decoration has to block-printed cotton...

How many different techniques were required to manufacture this brass lunchbox? This talk examines the form and function of the lunchbox, and links it to earlier examples produced during the Mamluk sultanate (1250-1517) in Egypt and Syria? Figure 1. Brass lunchbox,...

Why do we often use the term ‘balsam’ to describe a soothing medicine? This talk discusses a small glass bottle dating to the nineteenth century, and connects it to the use of medicinal tree resins in ancient and medieval times.Figure 1. Clear glass bottle of...

Why is brick such an important material in the architecture of Iran, and how was it used both for structural and decorative purposes? This talk examines an elaborate dome built over the prayer hall of a medieval mosque in the town of Ardistan in central Iran.Figure 1....

What leads people to make protective charms and why do these objects take some many different forms? This talk examines three amulets from Afghanistan, and links them to a tradition that stretches back before the birth of Islam.Figure 1. Carved wooden amulets,...

What makes handmade paper different from the paper we use in our everyday lives? This talk suggests that we should pay more attention to how paper is made and the impact it can have on drawing, printmaking, calligraphy, and painting.Figure 1. Sheet of handmade cotton...

Why might people drill through ceramic bowls. This talk examines what drill holes might tell us about the practices of display and repair in the Medieval Islamic Middle East.Figure 1. Sherds from a decorated lead-glazed bowl, excavated in Karak, Jordan. Late twelfth...

Why did craftsmen choose to copy the styles and techniques of earlier periods? This talk examines a pair of inlaid brass candlesticks made in Cairo, and argues that the revivalist decoration is both inventive and expressive of the spirit of the time.Figure 1. Brass...

How do nomadic groups in the Middle East make their rugs? This talk examines a fragmentary flat weave rug from Jordan and considers the materials and methods involved in its manufacture.Flat weave woollen rug purchased in Jordan. Probably mid twentieth century....

Why is Shibam sometimes called the Manhattan of Arabia? This talk examines the extraordinary style of traditional mud-brick architecture constructed in the southern Arabia. Aerial view of Shibam, Yemen, c. 1964. Photograph: R. Digby Milwright

What do a druid, a mythical king, and an eighteenth-century Engish actor have in common? This talk examines the phenomenon of Conder tokens, and explains what economic circumstances brought into being this unusual form of money.Obverse faces of three copper halfpenny...

Why do pagan images from the Classical world appear in Jordanian churches. This talk examines the designs and inscriptions in a roundel at the centre of a mosaic pavement in an ancient church in the town of Madaba.Roundel from the mosaic pavement of the Church of...

How did coins made in ninth-century Iraq end up in Scandinavia? This talk examines a silver coin (dirham) minted in Baghdad and connects it to the active trading networks that spread north from the eastern regions of the Islamic world from the late eighth to the end...

Can we always trust the date we see on a coin? This talk examines one of the most famous coins ever minted, the Maria Theresa Thaler, and asks why it became so popular in countries like the Yemen. For more on the history and circulation of the Maria Theresa Thaler...

Why do the exteriors of Medieval military buildings sometimes carry decoration? This talk examines the political and cultural context of a thirteenth-century fortification from the Jordanian town of Karak.Burj al-Banawi, Karak, Jordan. After 1263. Ordered by sultan...

Pottery vessels are made to perform everyday tasks, but why would someone choose to cover a jug in writing? This talk examines the inscriptions covering an ancient jug found in the Syrian city of Raqqa.Unglazed ceramic jug excavated in Raqqa, Syria. Late eighth or...

How did an aerial photograph taken during World War I end up in a book in the University Victoria library? This talk relates the history of the annotations and additions to a published account of the Mesopotamian Campaign, and focuses on a photograph taken in the...

Why did the capture of Jerusalem by General Allenby in 1917 have such an impact across the world? Explore this topic through a painting produced on the Western Front by a soldier, known only as J. M.‘Our feet shall stand within Thy gates, O Jerusalem. Psalm CXXII.’...

What can we learn about the identity of the mysterious J. M. by looking at his paintings and drawings? This talk examines a painting of an officer’s hut from the World War I sketchbooks by J. M.‘Little Grey Home in the Wet.’ Watercolour painting by J. M., 1917–18....

Why is it important that a shadow puppet shows a figure smoking a pipe? This talk examines the story about a puppet found in a town in northern Egypt, and questions what substances were smoked during the Ottoman period.Leather and textile puppet discovered in Manzala,...

How can clay be transformed into an object with spiritual significance? This talk examined the Shi‘a Muslim practice of using tablets of clay brought back from sites of pilgrimage in Iraq and Iran.Clay pilgrim tokens from the Pa Minar Mosque, Zavareh, Iran....

Why did Muslims in the first decades of the Islamic period feel compelled to create inscriptions on stone? This talk examines the religious and cultural messages contained in two important texts written at the end of the seventh century.Inscription from Hafnat...

Why does a famous character in a Greek popular entertainment have a Turkish name? This talk discusses a shadow puppet made in southern Greece, and looks at the ways in which this type of theatre circulated around the eastern Mediterranean region.Shadow puppets made by...

How do people use art to celebrate their participation in a pilgrimage? This talk looks at a painted doorway from a house in Raqqa, and considers the way in which the hajj (pilgrimage) is encapsulated in text and image.Painted doorway from a house in Raqqa, Syria....

What makes some people choose to destroy works of art? This talk examines an act of iconoclasm in an eighth-century church in Jordan, locating it in a context of religious debates about the legitimacy of images.Detail of the east end of a mosaic pavement in the church...

Ever wondered why Canadian coins contain Latin inscriptions? This talk traces the surprising origins of themes on modern money, taking you from ancient Greece to the court of Henry VIII of England. Drachm of Philip III of Macedon; 50 drachma coin, Greece Obverse and...

What were the challenges of constructing ancient cities in Iraq and Syria? This talk looks at traditional brick-making in Syria and considers the use of raw materials, labour, and fuel. Images of the brick making process at the Syrian Directorate of Antiquities site...

How did printed maps communicate ideas to the readers of books in the sixteenth century? This talk surveys the information contained in an early map of Cairo and considers the ways in which it would have stimulated the imaginations of readers in the sixteenth...

Why did the Romans put so much effort into the images and texts placed on coins? This talk discusses what can be recovered from the content of two coins of emperor Trajan, one from Roman and the other from the east of the empire. Denarius of emperor Trajan, Rome, c....

Why might a medieval patron choose to place so much decoration on a place meant for healing the sick? This talk looks at one of the most famous hospitals of the medieval Islamic world, and considers the combination of contemporary geometric decoration and reused...

Can objects of war become works of art? This talk analyzes a Syrian brass box made at the end of World War I, and considers the surprising evidence for recycling of artillery shell cases.Brass box inlaid with silver and copper. Damascus, after 1911 (private collection)

Why do we know so little about the lives of the skilled artisans who made glazed pottery in the Medieval Middle East? This talk asks how much information we can recover by looking at the names written on glazed pottery bowls from Egypt.Underglaze-painted stonepaste...

How did the arrival of Christianity and then Islam transform the Classical cities of the Middle East? This talk takes you to the historic city of Bosra in the basalt desert of Syria.view of the Mosque of Umar, Bosra.Colonnaded street in Bosra, Syriaview of the Mosque...

Why are dealers in art and antiquities important in the early history of art history? This talk looks at a photograph taken in Damascus in about 1900, and examines the cultural context of the art market in the Middle East.Stereoscopic photograph, c. 1900. G. Eric and...

What can coins tell us about the evolution of religious and political ideas in new states? This talk looks at two coins minted in the early decades of the Islamic empire in the seventh century, and considers their links to the coins made by the Byzantine empire of...