Collection of the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin now published online
The Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin now provides access to more than 11.000 objects online on its website. This is a fundamental milestone in the accessibility of the museum collection and would not have been possible without the generosity of Yousef Jameel, Hon. LHD, a private supporter of the arts, education, and research.
Yousef Jameel facilitated the development of a special project team of art historians, archaeologists, photographers and conservators who, alongside permanent museum staff, recorded, documented and photographed large parts of its collection between 2012 and 2017. They compiled important information about the objects including their dating, provenance, materials, and techniques. In addition, various views and interesting details of the artefacts were photographed.
After the successful conclusion of the project last year a huge selection of object information is now available online. This includes most of the museum’s famous carpets, three hundred examples of its little-published textiles, representative artworks from the ceramic, glass and metalwork and the ivory collection.
The complete digitization of two highlights of Shirazi book art are of particular note: the famous anthology of the Timurid prince Baisunqur from 1420 (I. 4628) in addition to the magnificent Koran from 1560-70 (I. 42/68).
Furthermore large parts of the museum’s excavations finds now feature prominently on the web. First of all Samarra, with more than 800 finds and Ctesiphon as well as Khirbat al-Minya/Tabgha with more than 900 finds are all online. More than 300 representative finds from al-Raqqah and 500 from Takht-e Soleiman emphasize the leading role of the Berlin museum in the field of Islamic archaeology.
The objects are available online at www.smb-digital.de. Please look for „Museum für Islamische Kunst“. Currently the descriptions are only available in German. However you may search the collection in a special search form („Advanced Search“) according to date, material, object/term and geographical reference and enjoy the multiple views of the objects featured under the headline „Multimedia“.
Link: http://www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&lang=en
