15.2: Ilkhanid

Making and Mutilating Manuscripts of the Shahnama

by Dr. Sheila Blair

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): “The Bier of Iskandar (Alexander the Great),” folio from the Great Mongol Shahnama (Il-Khanid dynasty, Tabriz, Iran), c. 1330, ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 57.6 x 39.7 cm. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, purchase—Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1938.3. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Illustrated manuscripts are one of the glories of Persian art, especially those made during the heyday of production from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth century. The most popular text was the Shahnama, or Book of Kings. This 50,000-couplet poem recounts the history of Iran from the creation of the world to the coming of the Arabs in the seventh century through the reigns of fifty successive monarchs. Rulers and their courtiers often commissioned splendid copies of the Shahnama to link themselves to the heroes of the past, whether the “Alexander of the Age” (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)) or “The Lord of the World" (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\) and detail, Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)).

Today some of the most important manuscripts are sadly dismembered. Reconstructing the history of two of these splendid manuscripts—from creation to mutilation—shows how they have been used (and misused) over the centuries as political propaganda, loot, and even fodder in the international art market.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Sultan Muhammad, “The Court of Kayumars,” 47 x 32 cm, opaque watercolor, ink, gold, silver on paper, folio 20v, Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp I (Safavid), Tabriz, Iran. Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Great Mongol Shahnama and the Tahmasp Shahnama

These two illustrated pages (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) and Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)) come from the most ambitious manuscripts known: the Great Mongol Shahnama, made for the Mongol court in northwest Iran around 1330, and the Tahmasp Shahnama, made two centuries later in the same region for the Safavid shah Tahmasp (and perhaps inspired by the earlier one).

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Sultan Muhammad, “The Lord of the World” shown as part of “The Court of Kayumars,” 47 x 32 cm, opaque watercolor, ink, gold, silver on paper, folio 20v, Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp I (Safavid), Tabriz, Iran. Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Reconstructing the manuscripts today

It is impossible to undo the damage suffered in dismembering these manuscripts, but scholars have pursued several strategies to help us appreciate some of their original glories. Each approach brings different benefits, but also entails certain limitations. Exhibitions of disbursed folios allows viewers to compare folios side by side, especially important in the case of the Great Mongol Shahnama in which the individual paintings differ so widely. But some museums are prohibited from lending, and few would risk sending all of their folios from one manuscript at a single go.

Another approach is to produce a handsome monograph with full-size color illustrations of all the folios, as Sheila Canby did with the Tahmasp Shahnama to celebrate the poem’s millennium in 2010. The book showcases the wonders of the images, but privileges paintings over poetry and downplays the manuscript as the integral work of art. Calligraphers, heirs to two centuries of tradition in transcribing this text, wanted to have the lines describing the action frame the painting. To do so, they manipulated the layout.

Figure \(\PageIndex{12}\): Folio 708a, front side of the folio with “The Angel Surush rescues Khusraw Parviz” shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{10}\). The calligrapher needed to stretch out the text and wrote some of the lines on the diagonal so that the appropriate verses fell around the painting on the back side of the folio. (Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1970.301.73, via Smarthistory)

In the case of the “The Angel Surush rescues Khusraw Parviz,” for example, the calligrapher wrote some of the lines on the front side of the folio diagonally so that the page contains only 12 lines of text instead of the standard 22 (Figure \(\PageIndex{12}\), and the couplets describing the angel’s descent fall next to the painting on the reverse (Figure \(\PageIndex{10}\)). The diagonal layout signals to readers that an illustration is approaching and heightens their anticipation in turning the page.

A digital reconstruction of the manuscript would allow the reader to sense the rhythm while flipping the pages, but such an enterprise is exceedingly difficult given that this manuscript is divided between two major institutions in the U.S. and Iran, with additional folios scattered among dozens of public institutions and private collectors, with some still changing ownership. Furthermore, books in the Islamic lands were never meant to be seen flat, as the bindings allow them to be opened only 110 degrees. Instead, books were read three-quarters open while supported on a cradle or stand. So images of a two-page spread flat on a computer screen directly in front of viewers are distorted and do not convey the original aspect of reading the book. Nevertheless, all of these approaches help us to visually reconstruct these glorious illustrated books, in the words of the Safavid chronicler Dust Muhammad, the likes of which the celestial spheres have never seen.

Notes:

1. For the Great Mongol Shahnama, we cannot say exactly how large the folios were since it was remargined, but the written area is more than twice that of the Tahmasp Shahnama (1160 vs 486 sq. cm.) The larger area of writing in the Great Mongol Shahnama allowed for more columns (six vs. four) and more lines (31 vs. 22) per page.

Global Connection: The Tactile Lives of Medieval Manuscripts

Medieval illuminated manuscripts are portable objects of luxury. Skilled artists not only copied text to the pages, but also imbued them with intricate imagery, rich colors, and gold leaf. Dr. Bryan Keene and Rheagan Martin describe how books such as these were made to be held, carried, and touched (something that, as Sheila Blair noted, evidently did not happen with the Tahmasp Shanama, given its lack of fingerprints). Keene and Martin examine the unique history of illuminated manuscripts as leading “eventful lives” because of the relationship a manuscript had with its owner. More specifically, they introduce how pages of manuscripts featuring religious imagery, such as that of Christ on the crucifix, even acted as “vehicles” with which to connect the reader with the divine. Such images were touched, kissed, and rubbed repeatedly as signs of religious devotion or in acts of prayer. Some images were even touched or rubbed so much that the images became erased over time. In Islamic manuscripts, pious users sometimes sought to render human figures lifeless by rubbing out their eyes, or drawing a line across their necks, symbolically slitting their throats. Other images, such as some showcasing naked figures or people engaged in extramarital sexual activity, even seemed to be rubbed out in an act of censorship.

Figure \(\PageIndex{14}\): Left:The Crucifixion, begun after 1234, completed before 1262. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig V 5, fol. 104v; Right:The Crucifixion, about 1420–30, Master of the Kremnitz Stadtbuch. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig V 6, fol. 147v. (Images via Smarthistory) As the article points out, in the Crucifixion on the left, "the body of the crucified Christ was repeatedly touched in the past for devotional purposes." The page on the right "includes an osculation plaque beneath The Crucifixion, and this roundel with the risen Christ was specifically meant for kissing."

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Bahram Gur Fights the Karg (Horned Wolf)

by Jayne Yantz

Who was Bahram Gur and what is a Karg?

Figure \(\PageIndex{16}\): Plate with a hunting scene from the tale of Bahram Gur and Azadeh, c. 5th century, Sasanian, silver, mercury gilding, 20.1 cm. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain)

Bahram V was a king of the Sasanian empire that ruled Persia from the third to the seventh century, just prior to the arrival of Islam. His nickname, Bahram Gur, refers to a “gur” or onager—a type of wild ass which is one of the world’s fastest-running mammals. The word “gur” may also mean “swift.” He was known as a great hunter of onagers (Figure \(\PageIndex{16}\)), a favorite game animal in ancient Iran, and he was renowned for his talents in warfare, chivalry, and romance. On a trip to India, according to the Shahnama, the king of India, a ruler named Shangal, recognized Bahram Gur’s abilities and sought his help in ridding the Indian countryside of the frightening and fierce Karg.

The illumination as a stylistic blend

Figure \(\PageIndex{19}\): Six Horses, 13th–14th century, China, ink and color on paper, 47.1 x 647.1 cm (image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain)

This manuscript was likely completed at the Mongol court in Tabriz, a rich and cosmopolitan urban center (in what is today northern Iran). By the time the book was produced, the Mongols had settled into their role as refined rulers with international contacts, and their lands were secure enough to ensure the safe exchange of both goods and ideas throughout the empire. The increased availability of paper, invented in China in the eighth century, also encouraged the diffusion of artistic ideas. Consequently, Ilkhanid art had an international flavor. Landscape elements, for instance, often show influences from China, incorporating motifs seen on imported Chinese scrolls (Figure \(\PageIndex{19}\)) and ceramics. In Bahram Gur Fights the Karg, the worn and twisted trees, overlapping forms that create spatial recession, rapidly brushed foreground vegetation, and a taste for asymmetry all suggest eastern Asian influences.

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Articles in this section:

• Dr. Sheila Blair, "Making and Mutilating Manuscripts of the Shahnama," in Smarthistory, July 27, 2020 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Bryan C. Keene and Rheagan Martin, "Coming Out: Queer Erasure and Censorship from the Middle Ages to Modernity," in Smarthistory, July 30, 2020 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Jayne Yantz, "Bahram Gur Fights the Karg (Horned Wolf)," in Smarthistory, January 20, 2017 (CC BY-NC-SA)