Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 12
The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I conclude the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). What better way than with maps. Here then is Palestine in all its cartographic glory.
Way back in 1976 I picked up a delightful photographic book called Afghan Trucks, published by the Stonehill Publishing Company in New York. The photographer was Jean-Charles Blanc, who obviously had a far easier time trucking around Afghanistan than a photographer would today. The brief introduction says nothing about the photographer. It does say a lot about Afghan drivers:
“The driver and his mates are conditioned to a hard, lonely, even painful life, but its austerity is brightened by the dazzling exterior decor of the truck. Flowers transform it into a moving oasis: with rows of tulips and bouquets of roses clinging to its sides, the Afghan truck is like a traveling art gallery wending its way through arid mountains and deserts. Continue reading Afghan Trucks 1
Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 16
The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I continue the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). Hurlbutt includes two diagrams showing cross-sections across Palestine. That shown above is an east-west transect, showing the Dead Sea level at 1,300 feet below sea level. These were indeed better times, more than a century ago. Today the Dead Sea has dropped at least another 85 feet and continues at an alarming rate. The north-south transect is shown below. In order to be able to read it here, I have split it, but originally it was a single horizontal diagram. Continue reading Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #8
The Moroccan artist Lalla Essaydi has a fascinating portfolio of images of veiled Moroccan women. Her exhibition, Converging Territories, (also a book) is viewable online at the Brooklyn Museum of Art website.
by F. E. Peters, NYPL Website, October 18, 20120
For very long time, Jews, Christians and Muslims have behaved toward one another like members of a dysfunctional family, like the competitors for an immense inheritance, the favor of Almighty God. But the current exhibition at the New York Public Library uncovers quite another strain of familiarity among the three, their devotion to the book.
Many cultures value the written word, the art of writing and a reverence for books, but Jews Christians and Muslims are unique in their devotion not merely to books – the scribe was always among their elite members before the age of printing – but to the Book. Continue reading Guardians of the Sacred
Check out this new website, initiated by Ursula Biemann and Shuruq Harb, this month: “ArtTerritories is conceived as an independent platform for artists, thinkers, researchers and curators to reflect on their art practice and engage in critical exchange on matters of art and visual culture in the Middle East and the Arab World. Dedicated to the interview format, the initiative encourages discussion of artistic process with an emphasis on discursive art and media practices, collaborative initiatives, and cultural and institutional politics. ArtTerritories aims to define, connect and expand already existing art communities in the region as well as an ever-growing invested international arts community.”
Photograph by Ahmad Hosni, from his Go Down, Moses project
The following is a sample of an interview with photographer Ahmad Hosni.
Ursula: The book is the result of intense but somewhat undirected exposure to desert experience with its chance encounters, local stories and tourist ethnographies, tinted by a literary reading of an eclectic range of writers, some of whom are discussed in the book. Continue reading Art Territories
Comparative view of the United States and Old Testament world, approximate scale, 900 miles to 1 inch (in the original map which is only 3 3/4 inches across)
The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I continue the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & company, 1947, first published in 1882). I love the irony of the map above. Long before the political map devolved into Blue States vs. Red States, here is the Old Testament squarely in an expanded Bible Belt.
Here is Hurlbutt’s summary of the physical space defined as the Old Testament world:
The Old Testament world embraces the seas and lands between 30° and 54° east longitude, or from the mouth of the Nile to the head of the Persian Gulf; and between 27° and 40° north latitude, from the parallel south of Mt. Sinai to the north of Mount Ararat. The total extent of territory is about 1,400 miles from east to west and 900 miles from north to south, aggregating 1,260,000 square miles. If the space occupied by the Mediterranean Sea and other large bodies of water is deducted from this, the land will include about 1,110,000 square miles, or one-third of the extent of the United States, excluding Alaska. Unlike the United States, however, nearly two-thirds of this area is a vast and uninhabitable desert, so that the portion actually occupied by man is less than an eighth of that included int he American Union.
I wonder what Sarah Palin would think about Hurlbutt excluding Alaska, but at least it was not a state yet and some still referred to it as Seward’s folly.
To be continued …
