Ars Orientalis

Photographic representations of the Meiji emperor began to circulate to select gov- ernment officials in 1873, but their sale in general commerce was banned in 1874. In sharp contrast, the government attempted to mandate the display of jingū taima, a Shintō amulet that bore the seal of the emperor, in every household from 1871 to 1878. This paper explores how the early photographs of the emperor and the amulets were distributed within the fluctuating context of the early Meiji years. By considering in tandem two objects that played pivotal roles in defining the public image of the little-known emperor, this article departs from previous studies in an attempt to articulate the roles of the distribution systems in construing images of the Meiji emperor.

The paper highlights the larger historical and cultural context in which French representations of Cairene architecture developed from the eighteenth century onward. It considers, on one hand, the general philosophies underlying the collections assembled by artist-travelers such as Cassas or by Napoleon's scientists in charge of the Description de l'Egypte at the end of the eighteenth century and, on the other, the later theoretical frameworks developed by Gustave Le Bon and Jules Bourgoin in the 1870s-1880s. It discusses the endurance, well into the nineteenth century, of Enlightenment ways of looking at monuments in Cairo. The hypothesized persistence of Enlightenment thinking in the approaches to Cairene monuments developed by French antiquarians is examined in particular through three key aspects: the sensitivity to political conditions, the tension between history and theory, and the lure of rational analysis.

... of numerous texts, notably the Useful-ness ofAnimalsby Ibn Bukhti shd', 9 al-B riini 's Chronol-og,920 the World Histo?y of Rashid al-Din,21 ... that were the staple of the Baghdad and Syrian schools are rich in animal depictions;' in fact, the paintings of camels by Ya}ya al-Wasiil ...

Though the Talmud offers a near-endless supply of halakhic rules, its legal discussions are also a medium through which the Rabbis take up issues that we might understand as philosophical, political, or theological. The recent daf yomi (or " daily page ") Shabbat 63 presents a compact example. On the surface, the legal issue is nothing more profound than the technicalities of what can and cannot be transported on Shabbat. Yet a careful reading shows that this is simultaneously an exploration of war, peace, and the nature of manhood.

... SOAS Departments & Centres: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Department of Art and Archaeology. ISSN: 0571-1371. ID Code: 3258. Deposited By: Crispin Branfoot. Deposited On: 15 Feb 2008 16:58. Last Modified: 19 Feb 2008 11:59. Repository Staff Only: item control page. ...

... design.44 These tombstones are among the earliest ex-tant Islamic tombstones from Iran. ... The main decorative features found on these tombstones-the mihrab-shaped design, the ... and foliated Kufic script were later used and further developed on tomb-stones throughout both ...

... The obvious reflection of this tradition in the Mecmu-i Menazil plan of Istanbul indicates a mode of making images and a set of attitudes to-ward architecture in harmony with one another. ... Curiously, although under Ottoman domination for more than eighty years, the ...