Elif

THIS IS ASSYRIAN. NOT PHOENICIAN. Someone has it wrong, I don't think even the op knew, but it's not phoenician. Those are two different civilizations. I'm no expert on the matter, but I know Ashuebanipal II was assyrian, I can tell you that. I could even talk a little about the change of the empire's capital from Ur to Nimrud.

I talked a lot about Timbuktu's literary tradition but didn't show many examples, so here's a selected sample of some of the ones I find fascinating, I haven't combed through all 30,000 available ones and likely never will but I'm still satisfied with whats on here.

An illuminated manuscript dealing with the 6 pillars of the Islamic Faith, written by a local scholar in Mali around 1690-1691.

These text pages are from Isl. Ms. 412, an early manuscript copy of Vesîletüʼn-necat (full title وسيلة النجات في مولد أشرف الموجودات) the famous Ottoman Turkish poem celebrating the qualities of the Prophet Muhammad authored by Süleyman Çelebi of Bursa (d.1422). The poem is among the most famous of the mawlid (mevlid) genre, literary texts written to be read and recited on occasions celebrating the Prophet’s birth. The poem is structured in prosody suited to simple Turkish expressions — more accessible to the common people — and throughout invites response from the reader or listener to invoke blessings on the Prophet.

-Henry Corbin, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn 'Arabī

Damn, Islamic dream theory is making me revise my anti-hermeneutical approach to the dream! On some level I do approach the world as a cipher that demands an esoteric interpretation… it’s called being a poet. But I also want to respect the is-ness of the world beyond this capacity for meaning making that is the imagination.

—Rumi on the dance of forms in the theater of dreams

tragedy in art

the execution of lady jane grey by paul delaroche (1833)

the fall of babylon by john martin (1831)

ophelia by sir john everett millais (1852)

the destruction of pompeii and herculaneum by john martin (1822)

princess tarakanova by konstantin flavitsky (1864)

the episode of the yellow fever by juan manuel blanes (1871)

les saltimbanques by gustave dore (1874)

ivan the terrible and his son ivan by ilya repin (1885)

the course of empire, destruction by thomas cole (1836)

Title: Prayer In Cairo

Artist: Jean-Leon Gerome

Date: 1865

Style: Orientalism

Belshazzar's Feast - John Martin

Belshazzar's feast, tells how Belshazzar holds a great feast and drinks from the vessels that had been looted in the destruction of the First Temple. A hand appears and writes on the wall. The terrified Belshazzar calls for his wise men, but they are unable to read the writing. The queen advises him to send for Daniel, renowned for his wisdom. Daniel reminds Belshazzar that his father Nebuchadnezzar, when he became arrogant, was thrown down until he learned that God has sovereignty over the kingdom of men. Belshazzar had likewise blasphemed God, and so God sent this hand. Daniel then reads the message and interprets it: God has numbered Belshazzar's days, he has been weighed and found wanting, and his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians.

That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean [Babylonian] king, was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom...