Warsaw Late Antique Seminar on Thursday, 23 April, 4.45 CET: Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert (CNRS, Orient et Méditerranée / UW), Silk in Late Antique Egypt: Texts and Textiles. Everybody is welcome, be it in person or online.

We're delighted to be hosting an intro workshop on Judeo-Persian with Prof. Ludwig Paul in early May:
www.naher-osten.uni-muenchen.de/wasistlosami...

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

Never too many dictionaries 🔍📚

Thirty lines of the "Physica" of Empedocles found in a Cairo papyrus The news this week, that thirty lines of the Physica (Φυσικά, On Nature) of Empedocles have been found in a papyrus held in Cairo, is exciting for everyone interested in ancient literature. Not that m...

A bit of background to the new find of 30 lines of Empedocles in a Cairo papyrus.

www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2026/...

Workshop on Coptic #Papyrology at La Sapienza (in person only: 13, 20 and 27 May, and June 3, 10 and 17 June).

Note that طيب is especially a quality of "taste" and "odour".

Ancient Persian van Bladel, Kevin. 2026. Ancient Persian: A linguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. When ancient Persian conquerors created a vast empire from the Mediterranean to the Indus, encompassing many peoples speaking many different languages, they triggered demographic changes that caused their own language to be transformed. Persian grammar has ever since borne testimony to the social history of the ancient Persian Empire.

Ancient Persian

van Bladel, Kevin. 2026. Ancient Persian: A linguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. When ancient Persian conquerors created a vast empire from the Mediterranean to the Indus, encompassing many peoples speaking many different languages, they triggered demographic…

Blau's Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Texts online 👀

The John Rylands Library to stage first ever international exhibition in North America - About Manchester The John Rylands Library will make history in 2026 by taking its first major international exhibition to North America, showcasing one of the world's most

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨

A must-see if you're anywhere near Austin, TX!

John Rylands Library is loaning star objects for an exhibition opening this month.

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨

#ClassicsBlueSky #AncientBlueSky #Egyptology
aboutmanchester.co.uk/the-john-ryl...

Prof. Getatchew Haile -- A Giant in His Field and in the Hearts of All Who Knew Him “Much has been said about the scholarly achievements of Prof. Getatchew Haile...”

Professor Getatchew Haile, renown scholar and advocate in the field of Ethiopian Studies, was born on this day—April 19—in 1931.

In tribute to our colleague, Joe Rogers shares this remembrance of Getatchew as a neighbor in Minnesota: hmml.org/stories/getatchew-haile%E2%80%94giant-in-his-field

Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 15 of 2026 A total of twenty-seven manuscripts were digitized by the Vatican this week. As with recent weeks, the vast majority, twenty-two, came from Ott.lat. The remainder, also as expected, were three from ...

27 #Manuscripts from the #Vatican this week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2026...
The expected: 17th C Papal stuff, Ge'ez liturgy, classics. Less common: Inquisition reports, Venetian chronicles, Apocalypse commentary, and more
#MedievalSky #Skystorians

Painted panels of a triptych
19th century
Ethiopia
-British Museum

#randomxt

I'm trilled to share a just-published article in Judaica with brilliant contributions by @mauat.bsky.social and @monikaamsler.bsky.social! An emphatic thanks to Monika for the vision, editorial care, and persistence it took to see this fantastic (all‑women!) issue through. judaica.ch/thematic-sec...

*ܦܳܪܰܚܬܳܐ

Here's the Peshitta of Prov 1:17 (it's only 17, not 18), on which the Ar. translation is supposedly based:

ܘܰܒܥܶܬܰܐ ܗ̱ܘ ܦܳܪܣܺܝܢ ܡܨܺܝ̈ܕܳܬܳܐ ܥܰܠ ܦܳܪܰܚܬܳ

The Syr. has ܡܨܝܕܬܐ /mṣidtå/ "net, snare", with which Ar. /maṣyada/ is cognate. Note, however, that none of the other "net, trap" terms has an equivalent.

The “De Haeresibus” of John Damascene and his chapter 100/101 on Islam Among the works of John Damascene (ca. 675-749 AD) is his “De Haeresibus” (On Heresies), which has the reference number CPG8044.  Like the many patristic texts of this title, it consists of a catalogu...

Some bibliographical notes on the earliest Greek description of Islam, in John Damascene "On Heresies".

www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2026/...

Earthquakes and Gardens Forum: A Response — ANCIENT JEW REVIEW Earthquakes and Gardens is a deeply idiosyncratic book. It is experimental in a number of ways, and experiments do not always succeed—certainly not for every reader.

The AJR #forum on Virginia Burrus' Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion’s Cyprus draws to a close with a response from the author www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2026/4/...

"There is a solution. And the solution is to concede that we are confronting a social, economic, and political problem; not a technological one."

The thematic section of Judaica on "Nature Miracles and Paradoxography in Biblical Reception of the First Centuries CE" has been published!
For the open-access issue go to:
judaica.ch/thematic-sec...

For those interested more generally in Late Antiquity, a special issue in SLA will soon follow!

Good question, yeah it seems so:

The printer’s proof has arrived…

Picture of a luscious cat with caption: stop using chatgpt i can also give you misinformation and i'm beautiful

spotted on the office door of my student assistants

"They cast their traps and nets with lies and doubts, just as a net is cast for birds."

Some #Arabic words for nets and traps:

شبكة
/šabaka/

شرك
/šarak/

مصيدة
/maṣyada/

as in Proverbs 1:17-18 (Sin. ar. 597, ff. 39r-v):

ينصبون شركهم ومصايدهم افكا ودغلا كما تنصب الشبكه للطير

/yanṣubūna šurukahum wa-maṣāyidahum ʾifkan wa-daġalan kamā tunṣabu š-šabaka li-ṭ-ṭayr/

ET 👇

Thanks, Sabrina, already got it.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 14:13. It just adds an entire extra paragraph ranting about the antedeluvian giant Og in the middle of the Battle of Siddim