“The Hajj—or the Pilgrimage to Mecca, present-day Saudi Arabia—is one of the pillars of the Islamic faith, undertaken at least once...”

“The legalization of cannabis is a hot topic in the contemporary political life of the...”

“In the woodblock print “Evening Banquet for Cherry-Blossom Viewing...”

“What do you first picture when you think of an illuminated medieval European manuscript...”

“In November 1947, the Urdu scholar ʻAbdulḥaq entered his library in Delhi for the first time since the independence and partition...”

“In 1994, HMML microfilmed the collection of manuscripts at the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar...”

“Armenian visual culture is represented in diverse materials that carry pattern, repetition, and memory...”

“West Africa has long been a site of textile production. Cotton has...”

“Textiles play a vibrant role in the churches of Ethiopia and Eritrea...”

“A unique aspect of HMML Reading Room is that it allows us to see how texts travel among disparate people, places, and cultures...”

“The extraordinary manuscripts held at the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul are a poignant testament to the survival...”

“In early modern Europe, the election of the Grand Master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem was a momentous occasion celebrated...”

“In many Muslim communities, the annual celebration of the Prophet Muḥammad’s birthday is one of the most festive occasions of the year...”

“Have you ever celebrated a special occasion with a homemade gift? Perhaps you made...”

“When Cosimo Buonarroti (1790–1858) reacquired his family’s palazzo—the Casa Buonarroti—in 1812, he found...”

“Pick up any modern book today and you will likely find short quotes on the front or rear cover...”

“When we think of medieval manuscripts in general, we may imagine male monastic scribes...”

“Church libraries in Ethiopia have often depended upon wealthy and powerful patrons...”

“The 1990s were chaotic and violent in the Balkan federation then known as Yugoslavia...”

“On a recent chilly October morning, I reached for one of HMML’s copies of...”

“Despite the vastness of Timbuktu’s digitized archives, it is a collection dominated by men...”

“The manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea come in all shapes and sizes...”

“Texts in West Africa were highly mobile...”

“When discussing the idea of migration in European art history, attention is often focused on...”

“Have you ever wondered why gingerbread is a common part of Christmas traditions?”

“Hindu traditions and Islam share a deeply intertwined history in the Indian subcontinent...”

“On September 8, 1876, four boxes of books arrived...”

“In the middle of the 19th century, Arabic-speaking immigrants began to appear among the waves of newcomers arriving in the United States...”

“Animals in scripts as symbols of meaning and the art of communicating a message...”

“Considered the king of animals, lions frequently appeared on coats of arms used by...”

“Antwerp seemed, in the 16th century, to be the center of the Western world...”

“In Arabic literature, as with many cultures, dogs are viewed with some ambivalence...”

“In historical Timbuktu—as in any part of the pre-modern world—animals were...”

“Interwoven tapestry of the natural and spiritual worlds as observed through the Armenian liturgical calendar...”

“The best-known eclipse mentioned in Muslim sources was the solar eclipse that occurred on...”

“Many of the regions where HMML has worked are no stranger to earthquakes...”

“Few things can impact daily life in quite the way that weather does...”

“In the days before social media, how did people share a noteworthy weather phenomena...”

“An answer to the question of what it means to be human...”

“One of the most common uses of manuscripts over the centuries is to train children in reading and writing...”

“With their 1962 children’s musical Space Adventure...”

“All of Timbuktu’s family libraries that were digitized by HMML include numerous compositions that...”

“HMML’s preservation work in India began in 2008 with the manuscript collections of...”

“Singing is one of those amazing things...”

“Although music is an aural and tactile experience, human beings also have a...”

“Among HMML’s microfilms of the Durham Cathedral Library...”

“I’m not a musicologist, but I am an avid fan of music from all times...”

“The Arabic manuscript tradition is rich in medical works discussing remedies and...”

“The book of vows contained one manuscript...”

“Grief, loss, and death itself were very much part of...”

“The story of the Zaydīs begins in approximately 740 CE, with a revolt along the...”

“In the days before they were going to kill him, Fra Sylvain de Bosredon woke up early in the morning to the dull sound of...”

“Stories about saints, much like their relics, rarely remain tied to...”

“The Gaza Strip is the smallest of the two Palestinian territories in...”

“If you want to establish a new church, you’re likely going to need some books...”

“A great opportunity to look at the interaction between manuscript and print cultures can be found in the Middle East...”

“In the mid-15th century, the invention of the printing press made books relatively easier to produce and...”

“A large amount of the manuscripts digitized in Timbuktu, Mali, that we at HMML have cataloged are fragments...”

“HMML’s Art & Photographs collection is full of fragments of the 15th and 16th century...”

“Luqmān the Sage (also known as Luqmān al-Ḥakīm, the wise) is a legendary character in Arabic and Islamic storytelling...”

“Manuscripts are known for their idiosyncratic nature...”

“What would you do if someone handed you a page that had clearly been torn out of a book...”

“The Great ʿUmarī Mosque in Gaza is the largest and oldest mosque in the Gaza Strip...”

“When Father Oliver Kapsner began to microfilm the medieval manuscripts at Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria, in late 1964, he could not have imagined...”

“Jacques Hnizdovsky had arrived in the city the year before as a...”

“The Lebanese poet, journalist, and linguist Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī (1847–1906) has gained fame as a...”

“Printing reached Ethiopia rather late. In Europe, texts were occasionally printed in Ethiopic characters from...”

“Maḥmūd ibn ʻUmar al-Zamakhsharī did not have an easy childhood. He was born in 1075 CE into a...”

“The advent of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century led to...”

“ʻUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Turūdī, was a scholar from Kebbi, present-day northern...”

“Christianity has a long, rich history in India. Some even trace the origins of Christian communities in India to...”

“In 2016, HMML’s Malta Study Center began the Malta Parish Archives Project to...”

“Angels occupy an important place in monotheistic religions. They are mainly presented as celestial beings...”

“In summer of 1917, the New York-based artist Rockwell Kent made a bold decision.”

“In the spring of 2012, the desert city of Timbuktu in northern Mali was attacked and...”

“Rainbows are optical illusions caused by the reflection, refraction, and...”

“The Syriac Book of Medicines is a fascinating compendium of medical lore from the...”

“Born Ben-Zion Weinman in Starokostiantyniv, Ben-Zion came to New York City in...”

“Today, depending on what communities you are a part of, your concept of a year may follow a calendar that is...”

“When I was a boy, the night sky always fascinated me—stars, moon, planets, nebulae, comets, and...”

“HMML Authority File (HAF) is a new open-access database created as part of...”

“The use of tobacco in the Sahel, whether smoking, chewing, or taking as snuff, was widespread and...”

“In 1744, the French Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary established a convent in ʻAynṭūrah, Lebanon, known in Arabic as...”

“When Cláudia Garradas learned about the opportunity to digitally preserve the archives of the Monastery of Santa Ursula...”

“There are several manuals in the Arabic literary tradition describing the profession of the...”

“Between 1585 to 1600 Maarten de Vos designed 141 engravings depicting hermits.”

“Who doesn’t love a good glass of wine? White, red, or something in between, authors throughout history...”

“It was the late 14th century, and Shīrāz was the city of poets.”

“Pie. Today, for many, this tasty baked good with its short, flaky crust suggests associations of...”

“The history of Arabian Nights stories in Christian communities is still imperfectly understood.”

“Who hasn’t heard a fairy tale about a princess whose beauty moves the richest and...”

“This year, HMML received a large donation of Russian icons from the collection of Edmund Gronkiewicz...”

“While some elements of the story are fiction, others are clearly inspired by real events in Khaybar.”

“Biblical narratives often leave the audience wanting to know a bit more.”

“Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and...”

“We live in a world ravaged by a pandemic, by wars, by all manner of catastrophic and...”

“HMML’s digital collections include entertaining stories from a wide range of linguistic and...”

“Have you ever heard a great joke, but then later when you tried to recount it for someone else, you couldn’t remember it?”

“Towards the end of Getatchew Haile’s first published catalog of Ethiopic manuscripts...”

“At many points in its history, Jerusalem has been one of the world’s most important cultural crossroads...”

“The highlights of the island included the harbor of Valletta, an elaborate and protective harbor famous for...”

“Mobility was a central feature of individuals, societies, and texts within Muslim West Africa’s...”

“In 1945, a pharmacist living in Lebanon—Manaseh Kaprielian—presented a 17th-century Armenian manuscript to...”

“The great Age of Sail conjures in our minds vast stretches of ocean populated by...”

“This note is the sole testament to the manuscript’s remarkable journey from Egypt to Mardin, a city in...”

“Much has been said about the scholarly achievements of Prof. Getatchew Haile...”

“In the mid-19th century, a group of French artists began to reevaluate the art of...”

“In September 1647 CE, al-Ḥasan al-Ḥaymī left the port of al-Mukhā (Mocha) in...”

“The increased activity of Malta’s ports after the Aragonese conquest in 1283 led to a...”

“On this day seventy-five years ago, an early-14th century illuminated gospel book arrived at the...”

“The disastrous impact of plague epidemics in the Middle East has been documented in numerous accounts...”

“Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi was a scholar who belonged to the Fulani, a traditionally nomadic people who...”

“Yeɗi belonged to the Fulani people, one of West Africa’s many ethnic groups, which...”

“The Archivum de Piro in Valletta, Malta preserves a small invoice and...”

“The Monastery of Saint Macarius is one of the oldest active Coptic monasteries in Egypt.”

“Along with the direct physical resistance to this unjust trade, the text shows...”

“The work of Dr. Getatchew Haile, long-time curator of the HMML Ethiopia Study Center...”

“The Khalidi Library in East Jerusalem and The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library announce that the complete digitized manuscript collection...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center signed an agreement with the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel...”

“The HMML palimpsest SJU Ms Frag 32 is a single parchment leaf from...”

“HMML’s cultural, religious, and geographic focus has expanded considerably since it began...”

“HMML’s very own palimpsest fragment recently underwent high energy x-ray imaging at...”

“In December, Fr. Columba traveled again to Mali to visiting HMML’s digitization sites in both...”

“HMML began digitization at the Pontificio Collegio Armeno (PCA) in Rome in 2018.”

“Lebanon is one of the most religiously variegated countries in the Middle East.”

“This year marks twenty years since the first significant efforts were made to use multispectral imaging (MSI) to reveal hidden...”

“HMML is pleased to announce the acquisition of “William Shakespeare’s Second Folio” to its...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed a digitization project with Heritage Malta to...”

Digital copies of the Rossi, Ansaldi and Caetani Yemeni manuscript collections now available in vHMML Reading Room.

“HMML is collaborating with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to provide open access to...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed the digitization of 90 manuscripts and rare Melitensia located at the...”

“HMML is creating digital records of more than 22,000 rare and historically-significant documents from a...”

“Against a background of terrorism and the destruction of religious and cultural heritage sites, HMML...”

“Fr. Columba Stewart and his team have returned to Bamako, Mali, where he and...”

“HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, have completed the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts...”

“HMML has begun manuscript preservation work in Jerusalem...”