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