The recto (left) shows faint traces of the title and a user’s note, as well as the crucial endowment note. Damage and repaired stitching are visible at the upper right. The thread passes across inked areas – proof that the folio was damaged and mended after the endowment note was written. The verso (right) is entirely blank, highlighting the materiality and physical wear of the parchment. Image: Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi Müdürlüğü/Ministry of Culture and Tourism

According to popular history, when the Crusaders invaded Tripoli in 1109, they burned all the books in the city's famous library. Our Artefact of the Month, a fragile leaf recently discovered in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul, calls this account into question
uhh.de/csmc-aom-36

Honey bees in a bee hive.

Quick peek at the @theul.bsky.social bees today. Looking good and ready for Spring.

Picture of a large duck on a grassy green lawn. It's mostly white on the lower belly and wings. Its neck and back are light brown, with its tail feathers shifting to orange-red and black. Its head is white except for a dark reddish ring around its eye.

Illuminated manuscript page depicting two Egyptian geese in vibrant green and red-orange inks, estimated to the 11th or 12th century. Found in in the Cairo Genizah https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-NS-00324-00002/1

Urgent WEIRD DUCK news: an Egyptian Goose has been spotted at @ruhr-uni-bochum.de. How do I know it's an Egyptian Goose? Because look at this picture, that's how.

Medieval bees! From Thomas of Cantimpré’s ‘Bonum universale de apibus’, a work of moral and spiritual edification, composed in the 1250s and based on the allegory of life in a community of #bees. This copy was printed in the Dutch city of Zwolle in 1488. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Inc.3.E.7.2[3072].

How can I take University Challenge seriously if its makers think hyphens and en-dashes are interchangeable?

Defra update 23.3.26

A report of Yellow-Legged Hornets in Sawtry, Cambridgeshire made on 13 March 2026. Several dead hornets found. From the additional information supplied, it seems likely that there was a YLH nest in the area in 2025 which went unreported.

Small brown varroa mites on honey bee larvae.

Varroa mites on drone (male) honey bee larvae. Because the drone larvae cycle is longer, varroa mites will seek out drone brood to lay their eggs. Taking out drone brood after it is capped in Spring is a good way to trap and reduce varroa in your bee hive.

Just got word that our book is now available from Blackwell's, with shipping to the US, UK, and EU. It's been quite a faff getting them to list it and I don't know how long before they're out of stock again: blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...
@meloniesch.bsky.social @theul.bsky.social

Sad to see the Ides of March becoming commercialised like this. I really feel like we're losing track of the true spirit of the holiday. It's not about how many knives you can stick in a tyrant all at once, it's about the whole community coming together to stab the tyrant as many times as possible.

Cambridge University Library, University Museum of Zoology and the University of Cambridge - Collections Connections Communities

Fully funded PhD studentship: ‘Recording nature and writing the self: time, entomology and the archive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’. Closes 3 May.

With Ruth Abbott, Staffan Müller-Wille, Ed Turner & me. @theul.bsky.social @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

Genizah Fragment (Or.1080 J23): a late 12th century love letter.

Perahya is in Cairo and misses his wife, Umm Thana: “Of late my yearning has become so strong that I am not able to bear it anymore." He invites her to join him, promising she can choose her own carpets. 🤔

https://loom.ly/h2W1pMI

Sometime in the 1130s, Yosef b. Avraham ordered a super bowl from his associate Avraham b. Peraḥyā Ibn Yijū who operated a super bronze (superb ronze) workshop on the Malabar coast.

The curator Benjamin Outhwaite stands at the end of a long table that is covered in manuscripts. He holds up a letter of Jewish merchants from India.

Bible from Iran Two leaves from a small codex of the Hebrew Bible, written in an Abbasid style horizontal format. It was written in 903-4 in Gunbad-i-Mallgān. It is the earliest dated copy of the Hebrew Bible. TS NS 246.26.2

Yesterday I arranged a trip to the Cairo Geniza unit with students. The earliest dated copy of the Hebrew bible, next to a shopping list of the Chief Rabbi (lemon chicken and molokhia), and at the other end of the table a letter from merchants in India. Such wonderful collection! @theul.bsky.social

Collection items:
The Terezín collection. All of the composers featured in this collection, except for Domazlicky, died in either Terezín or Auschwitz. The works were premiered in Terezín.

Studie by Pavel Haas, which premiered in Terezín. Haas was gassed on arrival to Auschwitz in 1944.

Are you interested or do you know someone who's interested in doing a PhD on Arabic translations of the Bible? The new #BibliaArabica long-term project is looking for candidates! (tbh, that would have been my dream position a few years back) Spread the word!

We've got some HUGE news! We've DOUBLED in size overnight! Not only have we added "some" more Cairo Genizah fragments, but "ALL" of them @theul.bsky.social !!!
This now brings the total number of items in Cambridge Digital Library to OVER 160,000!
cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...

A honey bee fossil (Hymenoptera, Apidae) from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene Teragi Group, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan: Bridging a gap in Apis evolutionary history A new fossil honey bee Apis (Apis) aibai sp. nov. was discovered in the Late Pliocene–Early Pleistocene lacustrine deposit in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Fossil species are identified based on their dist...

The discovery of a new fossil species, A. (A.) aibai sp. nov., has clarified the gap between fossils and recent honey bees.

zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1623...

Details of a fragment from an Abbasid Qur’an 📚

Iron gall ink on perfect parchment 🐑

@theul.bsky.social MS Add.1118, 3/4th century AH/ 9/10th century CE

#IslamicManuscript #CambridgeUniversityLibraries #Parchment #JummahMubarak

Concerning Mandaeans, Mandaic, and other matters | A conversation with Professor Charles Häberl YouTube video by Near East by Midwest Podcast

A chance to learn about Mandaic from someone who knows 😎

"To render the scribe unable to write from the inkwell: Squeeze the juice of a tamarind and transfer it to the inkwell. No scribe will manage to write from it."

Fantastic practical joke for medieval scribes.
(from §22 of this book payhip.com/b/BoYj4 by @majnouna.com)

A pleasure to welcome the new postgrads at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies for a @theul.bsky.social induction! We showcased UL's services & our world-class Middle Eastern collection, from ancient manuscripts to modern works, all ready to support their research.
#CambridgeUniversity

Dr. Krisztina Szilágyi is teaching a short course on Christian Arabic texts & manuscripts, January 6-15, 2026 (Westminster College, Cambridge)

A bee-themed (but unidentified) #bookplate, in a five-volume edition of the letters of Zacharias Konrad von Uffenbach (1683-1734), printed at Ulm in 1753-56. A great collector of books, he visited Cambridge and its libraries in the early eighteenth century. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social XVII.11.33-37.

Poster advertisement for a course at Cambridge called "Explore Syriac."

Sharing this on behalf of George Kiraz: There will be an introductory Syriac course at Cambridge in the winter term (January 2026). Please share with anyone who might be interested!

Conserved c.20 years ago, and holding up pretty well 📚🧿

@theul.bsky.social Add. 1116, fragments of a Qur’an, 9th century

#CULconservation #ParchmentConservation

Happy to see this old queen (Doris) was still going strong today. She is 4 years old. Her bees take their cue from her, very calm and quiet.

The Illustrated Cairo Genizah A thematic, illustrated guide to the Cairo Genizah collections at Cambridge University Library.

I think it might be a bit in the weeds, but if you want a cool intro to the world of Cairene Jews (and its discovery), there are a few greats: @nposegay.bsky.social

www.gorgiaspress.com/the-illustra...

A decent size onion!

🐝Did you know we keep bees at the UL? Dr Melonie Schmierer-Lee explains how she cares for our colony of bees, including queen bee, Brontë!

#CambridgeUniversityLibrary #UrbanBeekeeping #Beekeeping #Cambridge
@meloniesch.bsky.social‬

Video by Blazej Mikula

I first learned about the cairo genizah during a teacher workshop in cambridge back in 2017 (still the best PD I've experienced) and as a world history teacher the possibilities for the classroom blew my mind. since then I've been keen to have teachable resources so I'm really pleased to see this.