"Touching, Cutting, and Stamping Images of Mecca and Medina in the Ottoman Empire" - Sabiha Göloğlu, flash talk

Summary: Depictions of Mecca and Medina appeared in a variety of media and served myriad functions in the Ottoman Empire. As textual evidence and traces of devotional engagement in prayer books and pilgrimage manuals indicate, printed and painted images of the Islamic holy cities were used as talismans, among their other functions. This talk will demonstrate how several Mecca and Medina images catered to those wishing to secure intercession, blessings,cures, and protection by focusing on their accompanying texts and signs of physical intervention. Viewers engaged with manuscript paintings and stamped images in many ways, for instance by kissing, touching one’s face to the image, rubbing the image with one’s finger, or simply carrying the image on the body. These devotional acts often resulted in the removal and smudging of pigments or, less commonly, excision of easy-to-carry images.   

About: Sabiha Göloğlu is a recipient of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (Global) for her research project at the University of Hamburg and the University of Michigan. Formerly, she was a postdoctoral university assistant at the University of Vienna and a CAHIM (Connecting Art Histories in the Museum) fellow of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin. She holds a PhD in Art History from Koç University in Istanbul.