Co-ordination
Dr. Charles Melville and John Norman
Website
http://shahnama.caret.cam.ac.uk/
Aims
The chief aim of the Project is to stimulate research into the role of Firdausi's epic in Persian history and culture, and to investigate the relationships between the text of the poem and the many miniature paintings that have been created to illustrate it. These date from the early 13th to the late 19th century: an almost unbroken stream of artistic activity over 600 years.
In 1969, Jill Norgren and Edward Davis produced the Preliminary index of Shah-nameh illustrations, under the supervision of Oleg Grabar. This lists almost 5,000 illustrations; the true number is probably nearer three times this figure. Such a large body of paintings is beyond the capacity of individual scholars to study and manipulate by traditional means; this is where modern computer technology can make an enormous contribution.
The Shahnama Project has aimed to build on this preliminary work, and to provide a corpus of illustrations of the Shahnama, with details of the manuscripts and the textual context within which they occur. This powerful resource opens the door to almost limitless areas of study and comparative analysis.
In addition to making available some of the tools essential for further research, the Project has convened four international workshops and conferences, bringing scholars together from different fields to promote discussion and exchange. The first volume of proceedings of these meetings has already been published: Shahnama. The visual language of the Persian Book of Kings, edited by Robert Hillenbrand, Varie, Occasional Papers, II. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, containing 12 articles. A second volume, edited by Charles Melville, was published by the Centre of Middle East & Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, in 2006, entitled: Shahnama Studies I, Pembroke Papers, 5. This contains 15 studies that focus either on a particular section of the Shahnama, or on a specific manuscript.
Members of the Shahnama Project
The first stage of the Project was directed by Dr Charles MELVILLE (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge) and Prof. Robert HILLENBRAND (Department of Fine Art, Edinburgh).
Data collection and research was carried out by Dr Firuza ABDULLAEVA (St Petersburg and Cambridge), Dr Christine van RUYMBEKE (Brussels and Cambridge), Dr Gabrielle van den BERG (Leiden and Cambridge) and Dr Amin MAHDAVI (Edinburgh). Dr Farhad MEHRAN (Neuchatel) inspired the original concept of the statistical treatment of illustrated manuscripts, and has been associated with the Project from its inception. The database was designed and constructed by Iain MURRAY.
In its first stages, the Shahnama Project enjoyed a strong collaborative link with the late Prof. Jerome Clinton at Princeton University, who had independently created a website of the Shahnama manuscripts held at Princeton. The Project has continued to benefit from the technical expertise of his team, notably Dr Peter BATKE, who has assisted with the transfer of data onto the internet.
The Project Advisory Committee consists of Prof. Oleg GRABAR, Dr Marianna Shreve SIMPSON, and Dr. Djalal KHALEGHI-MOTLAGH.
In addition to the AHRB, financial support has been provided by the Fondation Wiener-Anspach in Brussels in the early part of the Project, and by the Mohamed and Ali Reza Soudavar Fund for Persian Studies at Cambridge. In its final stages, the Project has received valuable assistance from the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), director, Prof. Ludmilla Jordanova, and significant technical support from the Cambridge Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET), director, John Norman.
The website has been designed and constructed by Fetherstonhaugh Associates.
Second stage
The Project is now entering a second stage, with the award of a grant from the Resource Enhancement Scheme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), for three years from 1 March 2006 to 28 February 2009. The Project is directed and managed by Dr Charles MELVILLE and John NORMAN.
The primary aim of the second phase of the Project is to develop and enhance the website, allowing data entry and correction online, indexing and searching, and the creation of an internet forum for Shahnama studies. This development work is currently being undertaken by Dan SHEPPARD and Harriet TRUSCOTT at CARET, under the supervision of John Norman.
It is also our aim to complete the collection and entry of images and metadata in the Shahnama corpus. Work has already started in the USA and will be actively pursued also in the Indian subcontinent. A vacancy for a post-doctoral research assistant will be advertised in the autumn of 2006. In the second phase of the Project, it is our intention to publish printed catalogues of some of the collections that have been investigated and for which the data are complete.
A programme of annual conferences and workshops is being planned to carry on where the first phase of the Project left off, with a view to continuing to foster research on a broad range of topics surrounding the Shahnama. The workshops will also introduce the research potential of the database and hope to attract feedback from scholars on the way they would like the site to be developed to cater for the needs of the research community.
The Project is also interested in developing teaching materials and educational courses using the data in the Shahnama corpus. We welcome collaboration in this and other similar projects focusing on making manuscript materials, texts and images accessible online. We shall be happy to work in association with other projects addressing similar issues and problems and are open at all times to comments, suggestions and collaborative research initiatives.