appropriately caffeinated, given the circumstances

Late gothic sword with ornate carved ivory hilt, Europe, 15th-16th century

10.9.2025

#MiniatureMonday 

Arabic Octagonal Qur’an

Likely produced during the tail end of The Islamic Golden Age, (ca 8th to 14th century)  which was a period of cultural, economic and scientific flourishing in the greater Middle East, this remarkable miniature Qur'an is handwritten in fully vocalized Arabic on octagonal pages inside a gold border. It is contained in red spherical case with clasp, and the whole thing is preserved in a special case made by the University of Iowa conservation department.

Read more about it here

Check back in on Thursday for another book in Arabic from the archives!

Posy ring, late Medieval period (15th century?), engraved with foliage and the motto "Je desir vous Ceruir" ("Je désire vous servir" / "I desire to serve you")

Discovered by a metal detectorist in Essex, 2023

This is an exerpt from a larger work about tagging that I'm posting on AO3. The purpose is not to tell authors how to tag. It is to teach authors how tags work so that they can make informed decisions around which tags they want to use (or not use).

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Authors are free to create their own personalized version of a tag. Someone might want to tag their fic with the fluffiest fluff to ever fluff, for example.

When an author does this, one of AO3's volunteer tag wranglers will see that tag, recognize what it means, and syn it to the tag fluff.

Synning a tag means to make it synonymous. In other words, to say that this tag means the same thing as this other tag.

By connecting those two tags together, any reader who searches for the tag fluff will also find the fic with the tag the fluffiest fluff to ever fluff. 

Since wranglers are able to match up tags with the same meanings, authors do not have to tag different versions of the same idea in order to ensure that readers can search or filter for it. They are able to pick their favourite version or the one that works best for that particular fic, and they can be assured that readers will still be able to find (or avoid) their work. 

When you're posting a work on AO3, one of the options you have is to add relationship tags to your work. Sometimes you'll see tags that look almost exactly the same and you might wonder what the difference is.

A/B indicates that person A and person B have a romantic or sexual relationship in this fic.

A&B indicates that person A and person B have a non-romantic and non-sexual relationship in this fic - they are friends, colleagues, family members etc. who have a platonic relationship.

If you want to add more specific information about what kind of relationship the characters have in your story, you can use the additional tags or the summary to let readers know more about what they're in for.