A journey to search my soul

This is a blog of my personal collections. The purpose of this blog is to educate myself and public in regards to antiquities especially related to religion and calligraphy. I welcome everyone to input their feedback in this blog which they think would be helpful. I do not watermark the photos in this blog so everyone is free to use them as long as they are not used for illegal and unethical reasons. I appreciate if you could notify me if you plan to use any of the photos here. Enjoy browsing!!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Ancient Manuscript Review 128 : Antique Islamic Papyrus Manuscript Prayer ( 10th Century CE )



I purchased this papyrus manuscript from an auction in 2013.It is written in Arabic on paper but the backing is from papyrus.
 I couldn't decipher the meaning but I knew for sure it was written in Arabic. This manuscript could be a sort of prayer or amulet because it has a symmetrical shape which if folded resembles an umbrella. However I think this is Islamic manuscript because there is a lot of words of Allah, Hussein and Ali which are Shiite in nature. This could be written during the time of Fatimid Shiite Empire ( 909 -1171 CE ) in Egypt.
Comparing this Arabic script from a dated papyrus document from manuscriptevidence.org of 357AH ( 967 CE), they have strikingly similar script. Hence it is safe to estimate this manuscript from 10th Century CE.
I need to do more research on this manuscript and will update this entry later. If you have any info on this manuscript, feel free to share with us.

Manuscript Specs

Item :  Arabic Papyrus Manuscript
Content :  Shiite Islamic prayer
Dim : Diameter of  9"
Date : 10th century CE
Copyist : anonymous
Origin :  Egypt
Calligraphy :TBA
Design : Written in Arabic scripts in black on paper with backing in papyrus
Purchased Price :US

3 comments:

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  2. For information about a 13th-c. mercantilee Egyptian letter folded into an equilateral triangle, then folded again. The relevant pages of her article are Anne Regourd, "Folding of a Paper Document from Quseir al-Qadim: A Method of Archiving?", _Al-'Usur al-wuta_ 20 (2008): 13-16. She argued that the folding meant that the letter/contract was invalidated. Tamar El-Leithy talks about this in his recent "Living Documents, Dying Archives: Towards a Historical Anthropology of Medieval Arabic Archives," _Al-Qantara_ 32.2 (2011): 389-434. I can email you this last article. ... Anyway, I will examine the pictures you've uploaded of the document and let you know if I can decipher any of it.

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    1. Hi Kristina, Thanks for stopping by and greatly appreciated your input. I glanced through the article you mentioned. However I am not convinced that this is similar to the folded mercantilee Egyptian letter. The fragment I have here were like cone shape fragments that were stitched together to form a circular shape document. Then I believed they were folded like an umbrella and then secured with a rope.Really I dont have any idea as the specimens here are fragmentary. Take a look of similar item in entry 129. Some fragments are pretty intact stitched to each other. Let me know what you think? Thanks
      http://abudervish.blogspot.ae/2014/03/ancient-manuscript-review-129-antique.html

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