Tracking the Provenance of Printing in Afghanistan
November 16, 2017
View Video (51 minutes)
About the Lecture
Tuhfat al-Ulama (Gift to the Religious Scholars), Library of Congress (image: World Digital Library)
The Library's African and Middle Eastern Division holds some of the earliest lithographs produced by Afghanistan's first printing press. A material analysis of the lithographs conducted in conjunction with the Library's Preservation Research and Testing Division using multispectral imaging and x-ray fluorescence revealed watermarks and major and trace elements in the printing papers. In addition, Bakhtary investigates the lithographs' literary influences and argues that the lithographs espoused a unique ethno-Islamic ideology that challenged the substance of Islamic revivalism in India, but also employed the latter's technological and discursive methods in doing so. The lecture concludes with how this similarity suggests that ideas and print technology in South Asia traveled along similar itineraries in the nineteenth century.
Speaker
Elham Bakhtary, 2016-2017 CLIR/Mellon Fellow, Library of Congress Preservation Research and Testing Division; Ph.D candidate in History at George Washington University
