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Egyptology Today: A Conversation With Egyptian Archeologist Monica Hanna
Your cultural connection
AramcoWorld inspires global connections that broaden the appreciation of diverse cultures. We believe in celebrating our shared experiences through engaging and educational stories and content.
History in Objects 12th-Century Glass Flask an Islamic Golden Age Masterpiece
History
Arts
Golden Vessel From the Islamic Golden Age Reflects Cross-cultural Connections
‘Make It Your Own’: The Self-Belief Simmering in Noorjahan Bose’s Shemai Recipe
Food
A Bangladeshi dessert reflects hard-fought adaptability in life.
FirstLook: Poetic Fusion
Arts
Prior to our modern practice of image manipulation with editing software, photographers worked more with planned intention and craft.
Egyptology Today: A Conversation With Egyptian Archeologist Monica Hanna
History
Until recently, Egyptian archeological sites were filled with foreign archeologists excavating prized treasures from the country’s ancient past.
Mundane to Magnificent: Yale Manuscript Exhibition Illuminates Muslim Knowledge
Arts
Manuscript exhibition reveals handwritten treasures spanning centuries and nations, in graying script and glorious technicolor, on ancient papyrus and gold-coated paper.
How South Africa Came to Popularize Luxury Mohair Fabric Globally
Arts
South Africa is the world’s largest producer of mohair, a fabric used in fine clothing. The textile tradition dates to the arrival of Angora goats from the Ottoman Empire in the 1800s.
Quick Summer Salad Recipe: Sea Beans With Fava Beans and Dill
Food
This recipe serves up one of London-based food writer Sally Butcher's favorite lunches—a perfect mezze dish of beans.
Zakir Hussain Played Tabla in Indian Classical Music and Beyond
Arts
While mastery of Indian musical traditions is one clear accomplishment, the late Zakir Hussain’s bold pursuit of his art across genres likely best defines his legacy.
Discover the History of Portuguese Tiles as Artistic Icons
Arts
Tilemaking is arguably Portugal’s most identifiable artistic expression today. And it all goes back to a 15th-century king’s love of Moorish ceramic design.
Flavors
Flavors: Afro Steak Dinner
- Food
- Recipe
This dish includes tasty portions of spiced beef with grilled vegetables. Aromatic Somali rice, bursting with sweet and savory flavors, is a natural match.
Learn moreFeatured Videos
Art of Islamic Patterns: A Southeast Asian Rosette Part 1
- Arts
This final installment in our series is based on the geometry of leaves and petals.
From Thailand to Malaysia and Indonesia, there is less focus on geometric, star rosettes like those found elsewhere in the Islamic world. Instead, designs here are generally cursive and vegetive. Many traditional houses feature window grills, brackets, architraves, doors and paneling intricately carved with floral biomorphic patterns, each one a formal, cohesive representation of forms and movements found in the surrounding jungle. The patterns have both practical and spiritual significance. Many utilitarian objects, too, from spoons to quail traps, are decorated and honored with these reverent designs.
Read the full story here.
Weaving an oriental carpet tradition in Georgia
- Arts
In Georgia Borchalo rugs are making a tentative comeback amid growing recognition of the uniqueness of ethnic Azerbaijani weaving. There’s hope that this tradition can be saved. Video by Pearly Jacob and Robin Forestier-Walker
Arian Shehu's Vocal Appeal To Safeguard Albania’s Iso-Polyphony
- Arts
For centuries iso-polyphony, a style of folk singing, has chronicled Albanian life. The songs are part of a rich tradition, and Arian Shehu lives and breathes it. The music is vital to Albanian weddings, funerals, harvests, festivals and other social events. Indeed, a Ministry of Culture official dubs it “the autobiography of a nation,” a means for the preservation and transmission of different stories. Recently, crowds gathered for the National Folklore Festival in the “stone city” of Gjirokastër, demonstrating that interest in iso-polyphony remains high. The challenge is getting younger generations to engage. But some are taking up the call.
Learn more and discover the story "A Vocal Appeal to Safeguard Albania's Iso-Polyphony" here.
The Art of the Seal: How to Make a Cylinder Seal Impression
- Arts
- History
Video by David H. Wells
Compact in size yet complex in the scenes they depict, stone cylinders—many no larger than your thumb—were a popular medium for Mesopotamian artisans talented enough to reverse-carve semiprecious stones and produce unique, often mythological tableaux in astonishingly sensitive, naturalistic detail. Their craft gave each seal’s owner a personalized graphic signature for use with the most popular media channel of the third millennium BCE: damp clay. Seal impressions certified ownership, validated origins, attested to debts, secured against theft and more. Many seal cylinders were drilled so they could be strung and carried as amulets and status symbols—uses that may find echoes among today’s compact, personalized communication devices.
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Author's Corner Q&A
- Arts
As a boy living in Jakarta, where his Dutch father worked as a civil engineer in the early 1970s, Eric Broug grew fascinated with Islamic culture. By the 1990s, after having begun studies in Middle Eastern politics at the University of Amsterdam, Broug turned his interest to Islamic geometric design and joined the master’s program at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies in Islamic art and archeology.
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