What is it about?
Block prints were used in medieval Egypt well before the invention of movable type. The texts printed in this way are mostly amulets, or magical texts.
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Why is it important?
Arabic block prints are rare, but important in the development of print. Though they did not use separate blocks for single letters, they were clearly modular -- blocks of text, and decoration were combined, and re-combined to make up new texts.
Perspectives
Some Arabic block prints are almost illegible, but perhaps they were never meant to be read -- given that these were amulets, they were addressed to spirits, or angels, and not meant to be seen by the human eye.
Mark Muehlhaeusler
American University in Cairo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Eight Arabic Block Prints from the Collection of Aziz S. Atiya, Arabica, January 2008, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/157005808x364580.
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