You may have heard of Enheduanna, the princess, priestess, and poet who is also the earliest named author in history. Well, a tiny broken artefact made of lapis lazuli preserves the name of Ilum-pālil, her hairdresser. It is a fragmentary cylinder seal, excavated from a tomb in the city of Ur.

An interim version of the Explore Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue is now available through the BL website: searcharchives.bl.uk It contains all the catalogue data from the eve of the 2023 cyberattack, and features embedded links to all currently available digitised content within the records.

Researchers used archaeological & historical records,topographic maps & satellite imagery to create Itiner-e,a new high-resolution digital dataset & map of the Roman Empire’s roads around 150 AD. It charts 185,896 miles (299,171 km) of roads across almost 1,544,409 square miles (4,000,000 square km)

An entertaining and enlightening read.

Beirut folks, come if you can

My first monograph "Before World Literature" will be released by the University of Pennsylvania Press in March 2026. I hope it will be of interest to folks in comparative literature, Islamic studies, and classical Arabic literature. www.pennpress.org/978151282887...

This is both lovely and important.

Please boost! The NOEL PRIZE, in memory of the great and good and much-missed Will Noel. Celebrate your (or any) open access library project. No project too small, or too big. Full details here, deadline 8/1, extremely low-effort Google Form: pacscl.org/what-we-do/f...

Ancient Assyrian kings didn’t just go to war with other kings. They battled queens of the Arabian peninsula, including the formidable Queen Samsi who may even be depicted on a lost stone relief mid-battle on the back of a camel. Fascinating piece by Ellie Bennet anetoday.org/samsi-queen-...

Today at noon at noon. Garrett Davidson and I are presenting on our ongoing al-Khanji book.

Join us this coming Monday at #IAIS to discuss Vernon Schubel’s new work with him - the registration link is here: eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

"اقليم الشام … ديار النبيين ومركز الصالحين ومعدن البدلاء ومطلب الفضلاء به القبلة الاولى وموضع الحشر والمسرى والارض المقدسة والرباطات الفاضلة والثغور الجليلة والجبال الشريفة." المقدسي، احسن التقاسيم في معرفة الاقاليم.

Please share: Call for Applications Winter School: Reading and Analysing Ottoman Manuscript Sources March 17-25, 2025, Rethymno (Greece), IMS/FORTH www.ims.forth.gr/en/news-item...

www.ias.edu/ideas/window... A write-up by Garrett Davidson, Sabine Schmidtke and myself explaining how the project we are working on came about. Might be of interest to Islamic manuscripts people.

This is amazing. A Lithuanian researcher, Ernesta Kazakėnaitė, has identified the earliest surviving manuscript in a Sámi language: ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/je...

Fellow historians , #warfare folks - whether #lateantique or #medieval- are there out there articles/books that deal with the different values and characteristics attributed to various weapons (sword/javelin, etc)

Here is the link for the free demo as well store.steampowered.com/app/3306180/... #gamingthepast #historygames #ottoman #digtialhumanities

Turkey and Pakistan and Indonesia had female heads of government since 90s, that is three decades—and counting—before the US.

“Magical” finds in manuscripts in the Garrett collection at the Firestone library.

www.aucegypt.edu/news/auc-lib... Colleagues at AUC, IAS, NYU, Princeton, Umich, and cofc came together to make this happen. Proud of their work and of my husband Garrett Davidson who made it happen.

A fragment of a manuscript on the benefits of Ramaḍān (مكتوب في فضائل شهر رمضان), in the collection of Aboubacar Ben Said Library, Timbuktu, Mali. (SAV ABS 02832: vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/153971)

My book on early Islamic Beirut is out brill.com/display/titl...