CACTUS
-Teaching a Persian kid to draw by drawing this cactus in the garden at Kucuk Ayasofya Medrese. They were very poor but the father was determined to get his kid drawing lessons.
BENEDICTION
-“Yaş kasen Baş kaser” (To cut off the top of a tree ıs to cut off a head) -The Prophet Mohammed—– The government was mutilating all the trees in sight, and I was so sick about it I couldn’t sleep. So I drew the most beautiful tree I could, outside the mosque in the square at the Spice Bazaar. It’s almost 400 years old. A few years later they killed it, cutting off all its branches, and severing the taproot to build a public toilet. The huge multiarmed stump is still there, like a mummified body looming over the square. Am I glad I got this drawing!
QUEEN OF NIGHT
-Babylon 1800 BCE A surprise trip to London courtesy of my gorgeous cousin Susie and her husband Tim, my first visit that wasn’t overnight. This is in the British Museum.
ASSYRIAN LIONS
-Lions at the British Museum 23 May 2006 -Assyrian 865-860 BCE Numrud temple of Istanr- Sharrat – Niphi / 1295-1070 BCE Egypt. /1800 BCE Gebel Barsal – Sudan / Knidos Colossos 4rh C BCE
There’s so much stuff to draw there that I just stuck to lions.
THE LION FROM XANTHOS
-British Museum -Lions from Asia Minor / Lord Elgin, British Ambassador to Istanbul, bought all these treasures to preserve them &. Prevailed on his friend at the Museum to build an entire wing for them -From Knidos / It had crystal eyes.
-I am being swarmed by adorable little British schoolboys & their teachers agog to learn all about these lions & everything else in this book
“Are you really drawing that lion? Truly?” They didn’t even know that “Asia Minor” is Turkey. We went through this whole sketchbook page by page, slowly, and they loved it. They wanted to know every cave in Kapadokya. They wanted to know about old Father Theodosius in the Last Church, and his knees wearing out the stone in front of the altar.
I love the British Museum!! Say what you will about places of origin, the treasures in there are greatly respected, treated with the utmost care, and are protected.
CAT MUMMIES
Cousin Susie looking particularly fetching whilst gazing at a bunch of cat mummies and statues.
-British Museum Lions / Egyptian Cat Mummies These are a few of thousands found in Egypt, and which were being shipped out of the country and ground up for fertilizer before someone realized what treasures they were.