Open Access Exhibition Catalogue: Power and Piety: Islamic Talismans on the Battlefield at the Met Museum

Exhibition Overview

Inscriptions and images on Islamic arms and armor were believed to provide their wearers with safety and success in combat. This exhibition, featuring some 30 works from The Met collection, examines the role of text and image in the construction and function of arms and armor in the Islamic world. Qur'anic verses; prayers that invoke Allah, the Asma al-Husna (Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of Allah), as well as the Prophet Muhammad, his family, and companions; and mystical symbols were all used to imbue military apparel, weapons, and paraphernalia with protective powers.

Power and Piety: Islamic Talismans on the Battlefield at the Met Museum

Ernst Herzfeld Papers from The Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Islamic Art

Ernst Herzfeld Papers from The Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Islamic Art – First Series Online

"Ernst Emil Herzfeld (1879-1948) was a German archaeologist, philologist, geographer and historian in the field of Near Eastern Studies. A formidable figure in Central European scholarship during the early twentieth century, his major contributions include archaeological excavations at Samarra (Iraq), Pasargadae, Persepolis and Kuh-i Khwaja (Iran); architectural surveys of Damascus, Northern Syria, and Mesopotamia; mapping of remote regions in Kurdistan (Iraq and Iran); and recording and publishing architectural inscriptions in Arabic and Middle Persian.

The Ernst Herzfeld Papers housed in the Metropolitan Museum are divided between the Department of Islamic Art and the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. The museum’s holdings consist of several thousand items from Herzfeld's archives, including photograph negatives, photographs, original drawings and paintings, clippings, correspondence, maps, sketchbooks, notebooks, squeezes and manuscripts of scholarly work. These materials span Herzfeld’s professional career from his collegiate studies in Berlin (1899-1902) to his residence as a senior scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1936-1944). Items document both original findings and synthetic research pertaining to sites and monuments in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, India and Egypt. While representing only part of his archive, the Metropolitan Museum's holdings are integral to understanding Herzfeld's scholarly career.
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The digitization of the Herzfeld Papers in the Department of Islamic Art is a work in progress/ Metropolitan Museum of Art  welcomes feedback on the online content from users.

Online Exhibit: Making the Invisible Visible Conservation and Islamic Art

Making the Invisible Visible :Conservation and Islamic Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
April 2–August 4, 2013

 "Conservators and conservation scientists made many exciting and interesting discoveries as they and the curators re-examined the Museum's collection of Islamic art prior to the reopening of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia in November 2011. This exhibition and the accompanying lectures and gallery talks present some of their most interesting discoveries."

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