By Roxani Margariti. In a class on Indian Ocean commodities, economy, and materiality, every year my students and I come across this scribe’s desk at the British Museum. It is one of several other similarly inlaid Ottoman-period objects that we study. We note that the desk’s inlays are made of ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell, which…… Continue reading From Tortoiseshell and the Turtle Eaters to the Beastly Turtle Island: Transformations of a Lovable Marine Reptilian
Tag: Red Sea
Glimpses of sharks’ fins around Arabia
By Roxani Margariti. My first encounter with detached sharks’ fins was at a fishing village near Ra’s al-Khaymah in the homonymous emirate on the Persian Gulf. The sight left me perplexed and curious. Hanging from a line like laundered clothes drying in the sun and piled up in a wheelbarrow, amid a jumble of fishing…… Continue reading Glimpses of sharks’ fins around Arabia