Books About Books from Around the NGL (and Wider Bodleian Libraries)

Posted on 9 June 2026 by ashleyparry

A blog post on this topic has been a long time in the making for me, because it has always seemed such a perfect fit for the Nizami Ganjavi Library and its collections. For, the achievements and importance of Islamic literary culture are rightly celebrated. However, as I dug into the subject of book history in the NGL, I was very much interested in looking at specific literary cultures within the Islamic world and their nuanced differences. I also found myself inspired by books on this topic from other parts of the NGL such as the Korean Studies Library and Eastern Christianity Library, as well as books on South Asian book production from the Bodleian Off-Site Storage. Furthermore, it was not long until I was spoilt for choice on which books to feature. Therefore, I decided to narrow the focus of this display to look at the techniques of book production used across the regions featured in the NGL and the social factors that have affected and been affected by those techniques over time.

Book display for 'Books About Making Books'. Various books arranged on a blue table. There is a also a brighter blue backboard with images and posters pinned to it. — Photo of the display for *Books About Making Books*

A very good place to start with such an exploration is to start with the aforementioned Islamic literary culture to gain an understanding of how that culture and its books were formed. For this reason, I have included Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition and In the Author’s Hand: Holograph and Authorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition. While the former takes a wide-ranging approach, looking at texts from various times and places, the latter looks at the relationship between one Muslim community and their manuscripts.

Book cover for *Ibadi Muslims of North Africa*

A good follow-on from this might be Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books in which James E. Montgomery dives deeply into the way that a medieval proliferation of books affected life in the Abbasid Caliphate seen through the lens of the life and work of highly influential author and thinker. Then, in Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition, Ahmed Al Shamsy relates how this long-established history of book production was again upended by the nineteenth-century adoption of the printing press and Arabic movable type. He relates how, through deciding which manuscripts to prioritise for printing, the intellectuals and publishers involved solidified a key corpus of classical texts, and, in some cases were keenly aware of the political implications of their choices. Elsewhere in the display, Tyler Williams tells a very similar story about the history of Hindi texts in If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi, which I found a really interesting point of interdisciplinary comparison.

Cover for *Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Book*s

You might also recognise some books from previous displays, such as Syriac Books Printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul by J. F. Coakley, featured in our ‘Welcome to AMES’ display all the way back in Michaelmas term last year. Coakley, who is an expert on Syriac language and literature and collector of types in non-Roman scripts, is also represented in the display by The Typography of Syriac: A Historical Catalogue of Printing Types, 1537-1958. He furthermore, owns his own printing press – Jericho Press – and many of its publications can be found in the NGL and wider Bodleian Libraries.

Cover for *Syriac Books Printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul*

The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press and Writing Women in Korea: Translation and Feminism in the Colonial Period might also be familiar from the International Women’s Day display. A good companion volume to Writing Women in Korea added to this display is Women Pre-Scripted: Forging Modern Roles Through Korean Print highlight how from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Korean women have used the power of print and publishing to seek greater autonomy and self-expression.

Book cover of *The Women’s Awakening in Egypt*

However, the history of printing and book production in Korea goes back much farther, as outlined by Byeng-Sen Park in Korean Printing: From its Origins to 1910. For example, the book details how Korean printed text began with woodblock printing, in which full texts would be carved and stamped onto paper. One such woodblock can be seen on display in the Window on Korea room in the NGL. This example is from the nineteenth century and shows how, even after the popularisation of movable type, woodblocks continued to be used in Korea.

The nineteenth-century woodblock from the Window on Korea Room

However, Korea is also home to the earliest extant text printed using movable type from 1377. Park also relates how this early development of printing was closely tied to the development of hanji or traditional Korean paper. Made from the bark of the paper mulberry, hanji has long been renowned for its combination of durability and strength with fineness and flexibility. Exactly how long is a matter of some debate and the book Hanji: Everything You Need to Know About Traditional Korean Paper explains the various answers to this question.

Cover for *Hanji: Everything You Need to Know About Traditional Korean Paper*

Approaching paper-making from a different angle, I have also included two reports – one from 1979 and one from 1989 – examining the challenges and opportunities faced by the Indian paper industry at a key period of growth. Issues discussed include assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of various homegrown pulp materials, machinery required, particular areas of growth and relevant government policies. Furthermore, the earlier report, written by V. Podder, also includes a short history of paper in India from its beginnings in Bengal in the nineteenth century. For a more in-depth look at this topic, one can also find The Bengali Book: History of Printing and Book Making, which outlines the importance of Bengal to the Indian print industry. As a pictorial representation of this importance, I have included on the display an image of a printing press belonging to Panchanan Karmakar, the inventor of the Bangla font (pictured below).

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some relevant online resources available via SOLO. For a short while now, the Bodleian Libraries have had access to the database Muteferriqa which is an invaluable resource for Ottoman Turkish materials from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library database which contains works spanning over four centuries. One e-book I would like to highlight as well, is Image and imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911. Many other books in this display are also available online, and I very much encourage you to explore both on SOLO and on the library shelves.

Bibliography

H. S. AbiFarès, Arabic Typography: A Comprehensive Sourcebook, London, Saqi, 2001.

G. N. Atiyeh, The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1995.

B. Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009.

F. Bauden, In the Author’s Hand: Holograph and Authorial Manuscripts in the Islamic Handwritten Tradition, Leiden, Brill, 2020.

D. Behrens-Abouseif, The Book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250-1517): Scribes, Libraries and Market, Leiden, Brill, 2018.

G. K. Bosch, J. Carswell and G. Petherbridge, Islamic Bindings & Bookmaking, Chicago, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 1981.

P. J. Brummett, Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911, Albany N.Y., State University of New York Press, 2000.

J. F. Coakley, The Typography of Syriac: A Historical Catalogue of Printing Types, 1537-1958, New Castle DE, Oak Knoll, 2006.

J. F. Coakley, Syriac Books Printed at the Dominican Press, Mosul: With an Appendix Containing the Syriac Books Printed at the Chaldean Press, Mosul, Piscataway NJ, Gorgias Press, 2009.

J. F. Coakley, ‘ABOUT’, Jericho Press, accessed 8 June 2026.

A. El Shamsy, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020.

M. J. Heller, Printing the Talmud: A History of the Individual Treatises Printed from 1700 to 1750, Leiden, Brill, 1999.

M. Ibn Bādīs, Mediaeval Arabic Bookmaking and its Relation to Early Chemistry and Pharmacology, trans. M. Levey, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1962.

International Symposium on the Printing History in East and West, Printing and Publishing Culture: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium, Cheongju, Cheongju Early Printing Museum, 2000.

M. H. Khan, The Bengali Book: History of Printing and Book Making, 1667-1866, Dhaka, Bangla Academy, 1999.

A. Lee, Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking, Ann Arbor MI, Legacy Press, 2012.

J. Lee, Women Pre-Scripted: Forging Modern Roles Through Korean Print, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2015.

P. M. Love, Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2018.

J. E. Montgomery, Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2013.

S. Nir, The Order and Disorder of Communication: Pamphlets and Polemics in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 2024.

E. Oğuzhan et. al., Mucibince Amel Oluna: Türk Matbaa Tarihi I: Matbaa Kurulurken, Istanbul, Ötüken, 2025.

B. Park, Korean Printing: From its Origins to 1910, Seoul, Jimoondang, 2003.

V. Podder, Paper Industry in India: A Study, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 1979.

Y. A. Rao, The Paper Industry in India: Status and Prospects, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 1989.

G. Roper (ed.), Historical Aspects of Printing and Publishing in Languages of the Middle East: Papers from the Third Symposium on the History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East, University of Leipzig, September 2008, Leiden, Brill, 2014.

O. Sabev, Waiting for Müteferrika: Glimpses on Ottoman Print Culture, Brighton MA, Academic Studies Press, 2018.

P. Son, Early Korean Typography, Seoul, 1982.

T. W. Williams, If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi, New York, Columbia University Press, 2024.

S. Yi, Hanji: Everything You Need to Know About Traditional Korean Paper, Seoul, Heyoenamsa, 2012.

Here be dragons…

Posted on 3 May 2023 by nikokontovas

April 23^rd is celebrated as the Feast of St. George here at Oxford!

It is often that St. George was proclaimed as the patron saint of England at the Synod of Oxford in 1222, and though historians cast doubt on this claim, St George’s feast day has, in the minds of many, a special relationship with our city.

As it turns out, the patron “saint” of our library, the 12^th c. CE poet نظامی گنجوی Niẓāmī Ganjavī, was also a huge fan of dragons, and featured them prominently in his story of the هفت پیکر Haft Paykar or “Seven Forms”.

In honour of our library’s doubly special relationship with dragons, we here at the NGL have decked our display table with a selection of literature on dragon myths from across our region of expertise.

Of course, given our namesake’s fondness for these scaly beasts, it’s no surprise that the centrepiece of our display is حسن وحید دستگردی Ḥasan Vaḥīd Dastgirdī’s 1936 CE Persian edition of نظامی گنجوی Niẓāmī Ganjavī’s Haft Paykar — one of only a number of original language editions held int he NGL’s collections.

Niẓāmī Ganjavī, and Vaḥīd Dastgirdī, Ḥasan. Haft Paykar. Tihrān, 1936. Print.

When is a dragon not a dragon?

Carving from the 10th c. Georgian ხახული Khakhuli monastery (now in Bağbaşı village, Erzurum, Turkey) which depict the swallowing of Jonah by the “whale”. (picture courtesy of Niko Kontovas)

Various traditions within our region acknowledge numerous types of fantastic creatures which, though distinct from one another according to those traditions, are all sufficiently recognisable as dragons according to our modern conception of the term.

Across much of Eurasia, for example, there is ambiguity – both in language and, often, in form – between dragons and snakes.

In Abrahamic religions, there are numerous creatures which are variously conceived of as both snake-like and dragon-like. In Hebrew, the word תנין tannīn can refer to many such creatures – snakes, sea snakes, crocodiles, dragons, and even whales – often associated with the sea and almost always associated with evil.

Translations of the Old Testament into various languages throughout history have reflect differing interpretations of the same word in different contexts, sometimes translating תנין tannīn the same way as נחש‎ nāḥāš “serpent”. This further reinforced the association between serpents, dragons, and the Devil.

Eventually, in some eastern Christian traditions, giant sea monsters began appearing where none existed in the Hebrew. This carving from the 10^th c. Georgian ხახული Khakhuli monastery (now in Bağbaşı village, Erzurum, Turkey) is thought to depict the swallowing of Jonah by the “whale” – here nearly unrecognizable as such – though the original Hebrew refers only to a דג גדול dāg gādōl “big fish”.

Similarly snake-like are the nāga of the Indic tradition. Though the exact characteristics of nāga vary widely across South Asia, like the Hebrew תנין tannīn, the Sanskrit नाग nāga is usually supernaturally powerful and associated with water. In contrast to Canaanite serpent-dragons, however, nāga are often portrayed as part human and can be either neutral or benevolent in their interactions with the human world.

Handa’s Naga cults and traditions int he western Himalaya (2004) details the worship of nāga deities in the Western Himalaya, where they are particularly associated with the weather, agriculture, and – curiously – bees. Like snakes, nāga deities in this region spend much of their time underground or underwater, and they occasionally claim a sacrifice – probably reflecting the occasional loss of life to snakebites in the fields.

In his classic tome on Tree and serpent worship (1873) in India, also on our display, Scottish Orientalist James Fergusson theorised, in part on the basis of the absence of any mention of nāga worship in the Vedas, that the veneration of nāga in these regions of India is a remnant of indigenous traditions dating back to before the Indo-European invasion of the Subcontinent – even, perhaps, before the spread of Dravidian-speaking peoples.

Connected at different points in pre- and early history to both the Biblical תנין tannīn and the Sanskrit नाग nāga is the Avestan Aži Dahāka, the most evil demon serpent of Zoroastrianism.

The word aži is cognate to Sanskrit अहि ahi “snake”, but Aži Dahāka much more closely resembles the Biblical sea monsters than the Indian objects of worship. Where nāga can control wind and rivers, Aži Dahāka merely entreats the Zoroastrian angels of the winds and rivers to lend their power so that he may pervert it to destroy humanity.

Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
MS. Ouseley Add. 176, f. 30a.
ضحاک *Żaḥḥāk* is nailed to Mount Damāvand as punishment.

In later Iranian myths, preserved most famously in Firdawsī’s epic poem شاهنامه Šāhnāma, Aži Dahāka is anthropomorphised in the form of the immortal tyrannical ruler ضحاک Żaḥḥāk who, after permitting the evil deity اهرمن Ahriman to kiss his shoulders, sprouts from them two serpents who demand to feast on human brains.

You can see this in folio 30a of Ouseley Add. 176, a beautifully illustrated Persian manuscript of the شاهنامه Šāhnāma held at the Weston Library. Some of you may also remember from our post back in March for Nowruz that the NGL hosts a number of editions of the شاهنامه Šāhnāma, so you can come read the gruesome tale of ضحاک Żaḥḥāk yourself in at least four different languages!

Incidentally, the modern Persian word for “dragon” اژدها aždahā is derived from the name of Aži Dahāka, whence also the word for “dragon” in many other languages, like Turkish ejderha and Kurmanji Kurdish ejdeha/ejdîha.

Fantastic beasts and where to find them… in a Mediaeval Turkish manuscript at the Weston!

By the Islamic Middle Ages, dragons in much of the Middle East had become, much as they had in contemporary Christian Europe, fantastic beasts of various shapes and sizes.

In an illuminated manuscript of مصلح الدین سروری Muṣliḥuddīn Sürūrī’s 17^th c. CE Turkish translation of زکریا ابن محمد قزوینی Zakariyyā ibn Muḥammad Qazwīnī’s 13^th c. CE عجاٸب المخلوقات ‘Ajā’ibu l-maḥlūqāt, housed here in the Weston Library (shelfmarked MS Turk. d. 2), we can see two depictions of dragons, accompanied by an explanation of their form, nature, and purported habitat.

The first (folio 140a) demonstrates how dragons in this period are depicted as largely malevolent and associated with the destructive forces of nature. Here we see repeated the common trope, whereby dragons are associated with the end of the world – here as the food for Gog and Magog, the monstrous lords who will wreak havoc upon the Earth before the Day of Judgment. The notion that Gog and Magog feast on a dragon flesh is first attested in Firdawsī’s Šāhnāma.

Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
MS Turk d 2, folio 140a.

“And (another) one is the dragon in the sea, which harms sea creatures. God on high sends a cloud to lift it from the bottom of the sea. It has a body like a big black fish and the colour of it sends out lightning, such that if its tail as big as a tree should touch a building it would ruin it. Whatever its breath reaches burns, and that cloud raises it up to the region where Gog and Magog are and drops it there, so that it might be their food, such that each of them brings a knife and cuts it and feeds upon it […]”

In a second (folios 144b-145a) depiction, we see another dragon fulfilling roles as both an object of conquest and a bearer of magic. Any man brave enough to slay it can employ its oil and meat to a variety of magical ends, further enhancing his valour and virility. In the interest of space we’ll leave them off this blog post, but you can come see these and read a translation of these folios in the NGL!

A case of mistaken identity (Part 1)

The northern half of the Armenian Highlands (composing parts of what is now Armenia, north-eastern Turkey, and southern Georgia) is littered with megaliths known in the Armenian scientific literature վիշապաքարեր višapak‘arer (singular վիշապաքար višapak‘ar) in Armenian – literally “dragon stones”.

While the dating of these stones – and, therefore, the ethno-linguistic characteristics of those who constructed them – is uncertain, they have become associated in local cultures for centuries with “dragons”, with which they share a name in local languages: Armenian վիշապ višap and Kurmanji Kurdish ejdeha.

Early research, such as Marr & Smirnov’s Les vichaps (1931), relied heavily on this association in their analysis of these stones. They note that an early Georgian translation of the Bible employs the word ვეშაპი vešap’i for the sea creature which swallows Jonah, often confused with a whale. They further suggest that the location of the dragon stones near high-altitude lakes and rivers seems to suggest an affiliation with water, which is also a characteristic of dragons in pre-Christian Armenian folklore. If the dragon stones were sites of veneration of dragon-like water deities for ancient Armenians, they argue, the veneration of the fire god Վահագն Վիշապաքաղ Vahagn Višapak‘ał “Vahagn Dragon-culler” and the vilification of dragons by later Armenians may suggest successive inversions of older beliefs by Zoroastrian and Christian authors.

Later research, such as Капанцян Kapant͡si͡an‘s О каменных стелах на горах Армении O kamennykh stelakh na gorakh Armenii (1952), has preferred to analyse the stones outside the context of their later mythical association with dragons. They identify the two figures which frequently appear on these stones as a “fish” and a “sacrificial animal” – probably a bull – but the popular association with dragons and the name višapak‘ar has remained.

Հայերեն: Վիշապաքար ցուլի պատկերով, Ք.ա. 3-2 հազ. Կառավարական երրորդ շենքի գլխավոր ճակատի մոտ.

A case of mistaken identity (Part 2)

With a name like “Georgia”, you might expect the largely Orthodox Christian Caucasian nation to celebrate St. George’s feast day – and indeed it does, though not when you might expect.

The festival of გიორგობა Giorgoba in Georgia is celebrated differently and at different times in different parts of Georgia, with common dates being 6 May, 23 November, and 14 August. Even the name of the holiday differs from place to place, though the association with St. George remains. Veneration of St. George in general is common across the country – so much so that, upon its independence from the Russian Empire, the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia made St. George its patron saint, as he remains to this day. You can read all about the various folk incarnations of St. George in Charachidzé (1968)’s Le système religieux de la Géorgie paienne.

Charachidzé, Georges. Le Système Religieux De La Géorgie Païenne : Analyse Structurale D’une Civilisation. Paris: F. Maspero, 1968. Print. Textes à L’appui.

You may be surprised to learn, then, that the country was not named after the saint – at least not originally. While the country bears the name Georgia (or names like it) in English and many European languages, the name for the country in Georgian is საქართველო Sakartvelo, ultimately related to a geographical term and ethnonym from a certain part of the country. The common European name seems to stem from the Persian ethnonym گرچی gurjī, ultimately probably related to the word گرگ gurg “wolf”, transformed by European pilgrims to the Holy Land some time during the Middle Ages – perhaps noting Georgian pilgrims’ veneration of St. George.

Funnily enough, while the story of St. George and the Dragon is known in Georgia, it does not seem to have played a major role in his traditional veneration. Instead, Charachidzé argues, many of the St. George myths from Georgia are ported over from pagan myths, usually of an old lunar deity.

Pre-Christian Georgian mythology does, however, feature dragons – usually known as გველისფერები gvelisperebi (singular გველისფერი gvelisperi), literally ‘serpent-coloured’ or ‘serpent-like’. In some legends, the გველისფერები gvelisperebi are servants or guards of certain gods or demigods. In others, they specifically guard the entrance to the underworld and are at war with the birds – sometimes eagles or the phoenix-like ფასკუნჯი Pask’unji – perhaps betraying an older association with the earth and water in opposition to the sky and fire.

manuscripts

Books About Books from Around the NGL (and Wider Bodleian Libraries)