A Guide to the Persian Manuscripts and Afghan Military Police Gorget, 10th and 17th centuries, ca. 1950 #10769-a, -b

Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
USA
Phone: (434) 243-1776
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Funding: Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Processed by: Ervin L. Jordan, Jr.

Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Persian Manuscripts and Afghan Military Police Gorget, 10th and 17th centuries, ca. 1950, Accession # 10769-a, -b, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

These items were gifts to the Library from Colonel Alan Mackenzie of Holmes Beach, Florida, on January 27 and May 2, 1989.

Scope and Content Information

This collection contains three items: framed tenth and seventeenth century manuscript copies of pages from the Shah Nameh ("King's Book of Kings" by the poet Firdausi (variations include "Ferdowsi" and "Fardusi"), in Persian (Arabic?), and a military police gorget, ca. 1950, from Afghanistan

The Shah Nameh (variously known as the Shah-nama or Shah-namah) was originally composed during the ninth century. It is a collection of episodes from the history of the Persian Empire and chronicles the reigns of fifty kings and queens from the creation of the world until the conquest of Persia by Islam during 636-641 A.D.

Accession number 10769-A, a 9" x 11" copy dating from the tenth century, bears four columns of text on either side and was obtained in Kabul ca. 1950; it is encased in a glass frame mounted on a revolving stand. Accession number 10769-B dates from approximately the 1600s and depicts a scene of four men on horseback during a polo game(?) (the illustration possibly obstructs additional lines) with its accompanying text on the reverse. For additional information, consult Reuben Levy's The Epic of the Kings (1967) and The Shah-Nameh of Fardusi (1973) by Alexander Rogers. [Another seventeenth-century manuscript copy is available in the Manuscripts Division of the Special Collections Department under accession number 6479.]

The gorget, made of copper, was also obtained ca. 1950. According to the donor, it is a military police badge bearing an inscription which translates as "The Military Police of the Commanding General, Central Army Corps." This corps was headquartered in Kabul.