The cartoon conference of the birds

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The proud peacock talking with the wise hoopoe. BL manuscript. BL image

The British Library is busy digitising their Persian manuscripts (with help from IHF), and are starting to show off the results.

The hoopoe speaking to the birds before they set off to find the simurgh. Notice the Safavid hunter – with a matchlock gun (top left); and the Timurid-style goat, plus the snake climbing a tree (copying Timurid folio 35r)

Maybe I should confess that my favourite Mantiq al-Tayr manuscript is the one in the  Metropolitan Museum. This was finished in 1487; with more illlustrations added by Shah Abbas in the early seventeenth century, before Abbas donated it to the shrine at Ardabil in 1608/9.

I didn’t think anything was ever going to beat that. But I’ve just found a really cute cartoon version of the story.

Please take 13 minutes to enjoy yourself! Click here.

The cartoon is a great introduction, too, if you haven’t yet read the whole book.

 

 

 

1 thought on “The cartoon conference of the birds”

  1. Pingback: A Conference of Birds | A LAYMAN PERSPECTIVE

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