Medieval egg book
As graffiti artists show every day, you can write on almost anything. In medieval times, however, most writing was done on stones, parchment (animal skin) or paper. The object in this image is special because it breaks with that rule (no pun intended): it shows Arabic funeral poetry written on an ostrich egg in the 15th century. It was found in a muslim graveyard in the Red Sea port of Quseir, Egypt. The text describes the journey from death to life and was written down to commemorate a young man that had died. Ostrich eggs were believed to give power to the dead and bring them back to life, which is why this book was ‘buried’ in the grave. What a great and unusual artifact of medieval written culture! It’s in pieces, but the shells survived in spite of being buried in the ground for over 500 years.
Pic: Dionisius Agius/University of Leeds. Read more about this remarkable object here and here. See this Tumblr post for a 15th-century globe made from an ostrich egg.
I don’t usually reblog my own posts, but this older one is just too appropriate for today: Happy Easter to all!