“What do you first picture when you think of an illuminated medieval European manuscript...”

“In November 1947, the Urdu scholar ʻAbdulḥaq entered his library in Delhi for the first time since the independence and partition...”

“In 1714, Hippolyte Hélyot began publishing his monumental eight volume history of religious orders...”

“In 1994, HMML microfilmed the collection of manuscripts at the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar...”

“A scribe carefully copying a text by hand in the 19th century had no idea that technology would soon allow...”

“Armenian visual culture is represented in diverse materials that carry pattern, repetition, and memory...”

“West Africa has long been a site of textile production. Cotton has...”

“The extraordinary manuscripts held at the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul are a poignant testament to the survival...”

“In early modern Europe, the election of the Grand Master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem was a momentous occasion celebrated...”

“Have you ever celebrated a special occasion with a homemade gift? Perhaps you made...”

“When Cosimo Buonarroti (1790–1858) reacquired his family’s palazzo—the Casa Buonarroti—in 1812, he found...”

“Pick up any modern book today and you will likely find short quotes on the front or rear cover...”

“When we think of medieval manuscripts in general, we may imagine male monastic scribes...”

“Church libraries in Ethiopia have often depended upon wealthy and powerful patrons...”

“The 1990s were chaotic and violent in the Balkan federation then known as Yugoslavia...”

“On a recent chilly October morning, I reached for one of HMML’s copies of...”

“Despite the vastness of Timbuktu’s digitized archives, it is a collection dominated by men...”

“The manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea come in all shapes and sizes...”

“When Martin Luther proclaimed his 95 Theses in 1517, the resulting shockwaves...”

“Texts in West Africa were highly mobile...”

“When discussing the idea of migration in European art history, attention is often focused on...”

“Have you ever wondered why gingerbread is a common part of Christmas traditions?”

“Hindu traditions and Islam share a deeply intertwined history in the Indian subcontinent...”

“On September 8, 1876, four boxes of books arrived...”

“In the middle of the 19th century, Arabic-speaking immigrants began to appear among the waves of newcomers arriving in the United States...”

“Animals in scripts as symbols of meaning and the art of communicating a message...”

“The refrain “The Lord works in mysterious ways” is rarely truer than it is in the Ethiopic Miracles of Mary...”

“Considered the king of animals, lions frequently appeared on coats of arms used by...”

“In the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles (17:34), Luke describes the ‘marketplace of ideas’ in Athens...”

“In Arabic literature, as with many cultures, dogs are viewed with some ambivalence...”

“Bird watching is typically an activity that...”

“In historical Timbuktu—as in any part of the pre-modern world—animals were...”

“Nestled in the streets of London, just northwest of St. Paul’s Cathedral, resides a...”

“For thousands of years, languages around the world have attempted to capture the sounds of animals...”

“The best-known eclipse mentioned in Muslim sources was the solar eclipse that occurred on...”

“Many of the regions where HMML has worked are no stranger to earthquakes...”

“Few things can impact daily life in quite the way that weather does...”

“In the days before social media, how did people share a noteworthy weather phenomena...”

“An answer to the question of what it means to be human...”

“One of the most common uses of manuscripts over the centuries is to train children in reading and writing...”

“Dr. Arthur Voobus was many things—a scholar, pastor, teacher, and refugee in exile...”

“All of Timbuktu’s family libraries that were digitized by HMML include numerous compositions that...”

“Singing is one of those amazing things...”

“Although music is an aural and tactile experience, human beings also have a...”

“The Arabic manuscript tradition is rich in medical works discussing remedies and...”

“The book of vows contained one manuscript...”

“In the days before they were going to kill him, Fra Sylvain de Bosredon woke up early in the morning to the dull sound of...”

“Stories about saints, much like their relics, rarely remain tied to...”

“The Gaza Strip is the smallest of the two Palestinian territories in...”

“If you want to establish a new church, you’re likely going to need some books...”

“The act of hand-copying a manuscript requires specialized skills that...”

“A great opportunity to look at the interaction between manuscript and print cultures can be found in the Middle East...”

“A large amount of the manuscripts digitized in Timbuktu, Mali, that we at HMML have cataloged are fragments...”

“HMML’s Art & Photographs collection is full of fragments of the 15th and 16th century...”

“Luqmān the Sage (also known as Luqmān al-Ḥakīm, the wise) is a legendary character in Arabic and Islamic storytelling...”

“Johann Gottfried Wetzstein served as honorary Prussian consul in Damascus, Syria, from 1849 to 1861...”

“When I arrived at the Palazzo Falson in Mdina, Malta...”

“Cultural losses continue to beset communities around the world, especially in areas subject to armed conflict...”

“Manuscripts are known for their idiosyncratic nature...”

“What would you do if someone handed you a page that had clearly been torn out of a book...”

“In the early decades of HMML, the region beyond the proverbial Iron Curtain was out of reach.”

“The Great ʿUmarī Mosque in Gaza is the largest and oldest mosque in the Gaza Strip...”

“When Father Oliver Kapsner began to microfilm the medieval manuscripts at Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria, in late 1964, he could not have imagined...”

“Much of human history remains for us today only in the form of smaller remnants or fragments...”

“Jacques Hnizdovsky had arrived in the city the year before as a...”

“The Lebanese poet, journalist, and linguist Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī (1847–1906) has gained fame as a...”

“A book you would love to read is lost, altered, destroyed, buried, hidden, left unpublished, unwritten, banned.”

“The advent of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century led to...”

“Christianity has a long, rich history in India. Some even trace the origins of Christian communities in India to...”

“In 2016, HMML’s Malta Study Center began the Malta Parish Archives Project to...”

“Angels occupy an important place in monotheistic religions. They are mainly presented as celestial beings...”

“In summer of 1917, the New York-based artist Rockwell Kent made a bold decision.”

“In the spring of 2012, the desert city of Timbuktu in northern Mali was attacked and...”

“Rainbows are optical illusions caused by the reflection, refraction, and...”

“The Syriac Book of Medicines is a fascinating compendium of medical lore from the...”

“Today, depending on what communities you are a part of, your concept of a year may follow a calendar that is...”

“Astronomical observation is built into the most basic religious practices of the...”

“In Syriac Christian communities, astrological texts were sometimes appended to medical books and...”

“When I was a boy, the night sky always fascinated me—stars, moon, planets, nebulae, comets, and...”

“Among the well-known biblical narratives is that of the twins Jacob and Esau, and...”

“HMML Authority File (HAF) is a new open-access database created as part of...”

“When Cláudia Garradas learned about the opportunity to digitally preserve the archives of the Monastery of Santa Ursula...”

“There are several manuals in the Arabic literary tradition describing the profession of the...”

“Who doesn’t love a good glass of wine? White, red, or something in between, authors throughout history...”

“It was the late 14th century, and Shīrāz was the city of poets.”

“The history of Arabian Nights stories in Christian communities is still imperfectly understood.”

“On a shelf in the Syriac Orthodox Church of Saint George in Aleppo is a manuscript copied in Arabic Garshuni...”

“Who hasn’t heard a fairy tale about a princess whose beauty moves the richest and...”

“While some elements of the story are fiction, others are clearly inspired by real events in Khaybar.”

“Biblical narratives often leave the audience wanting to know a bit more.”

“Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and...”

“Have you ever heard a great joke, but then later when you tried to recount it for someone else, you couldn’t remember it?”

“At many points in its history, Jerusalem has been one of the world’s most important cultural crossroads...”

“The highlights of the island included the harbor of Valletta, an elaborate and protective harbor famous for...”

“When people ask how we find new projects for HMML, I admit that sometimes they just come to us.”

“Mobility was a central feature of individuals, societies, and texts within Muslim West Africa’s...”

“In 1945, a pharmacist living in Lebanon—Manaseh Kaprielian—presented a 17th-century Armenian manuscript to...”

“The great Age of Sail conjures in our minds vast stretches of ocean populated by...”

“This note is the sole testament to the manuscript’s remarkable journey from Egypt to Mardin, a city in...”

“Much has been said about the scholarly achievements of Prof. Getatchew Haile...”

“Towards the middle of the 15th century, the Ethiopian Emperor Zar’a Yā‘eqob, a prominent theologian and scholar, faced...”

“The increased activity of Malta’s ports after the Aragonese conquest in 1283 led to a...”

“In West Africa knowledge of the Qur’an was often combined with local pharmacological traditions to...”

“On this day seventy-five years ago, an early-14th century illuminated gospel book arrived at the...”

“Many medical works from antiquity were translated into Syriac and transmitted through the...”

“Herbals—books describing the medicinal use of plants—have been important scientific sources for...”

“The disastrous impact of plague epidemics in the Middle East has been documented in numerous accounts...”

“Yeɗi Sanba Ɓooyi was a scholar who belonged to the Fulani, a traditionally nomadic people who...”

“Yeɗi belonged to the Fulani people, one of West Africa’s many ethnic groups, which...”

“The Archivum de Piro in Valletta, Malta preserves a small invoice and...”

NEH grant for cataloging, to create an authority file system database, and work with Library of Congress (LC) and Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)

“The work of Dr. Getatchew Haile, long-time curator of the HMML Ethiopia Study Center...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed the digitization of the important Lettere consolari fonds now held at the...”

“The Khalidi Library in East Jerusalem and The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library announce that the complete digitized manuscript collection...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center signed an agreement with the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel...”

“The HMML palimpsest SJU Ms Frag 32 is a single parchment leaf from...”

“HMML’s cultural, religious, and geographic focus has expanded considerably since it began...”

“HMML began digitization at the Pontificio Collegio Armeno (PCA) in Rome in 2018.”

“Lebanon is one of the most religiously variegated countries in the Middle East.”

“HMML is pleased to announce the acquisition of “William Shakespeare’s Second Folio” to its...”

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed a digitization project with Heritage Malta to...”

Digital copies of the Rossi, Ansaldi and Caetani Yemeni manuscript collections now available in vHMML Reading Room.

“HMML’s Malta Study Center has completed the digitization of 90 manuscripts and rare Melitensia located at the...”

“The Malta Study Center at HMML has signed a partnership agreement with the Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti (FPM) to begin...”

“HMML is creating digital records of more than 22,000 rare and historically-significant documents from a...”

“Known as the Officium Civile Sacrae Inquisitionis (OSI) Fond, the collection contains records that date from...”

“Fr. Columba Stewart and his team have returned to Bamako, Mali, where he and...”

“HMML-trained technicians in Aleppo, Syria, have completed the digitization of 225 Armenian manuscripts...”

“L’viv is a Ukrainian city whose multicultural past survives in at least two forms: its buildings and...”