Scribal Terror

The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

The funeral cart of St. Arigius

This wall painting from the Chapel Saint-Erige, located in the south of France, depicts the saint (also known as Arigius) being borne in procession by an ox yoked with a bear. The paintings in Saint-Erige are dated October 1451. Saint Arigius himself lived in the sixth century. He was a bishop who was acquainted with Gregory the Great. According to the chapel website:

As bishop of Gap, Erige was coming back from Rome where he had met pope Gregory the Great, when he was attacked by bandits in a place called "Colla Longa" on the other side of the Tinée.

The legend says his horse miraculously cleared the five hundred metres deep valley at one bound and found itself on the plateau of Auron, at the very spot where the chapel has been built.

Bored in church, 1667

"More Peepees!" just for you MC:

[August 18, 1667] . . . but being weary, turned into St Dunstan's church, where I hear an able sermon of the minister of the place. And stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again, which seeing, I did forbear, and was glad I did espy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid in a pew close to me, and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew.

--From the Diary of Samuel Pepys [pronounced "peeps"], a man with some serious issues

The only true Lesbians?

Ananova reports:

Residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have launched a legal action to demand the exclusive right to call themselves Lesbians.

The inhabitants of the island are attempting to ban the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union from bearing the name "lesbian".

Residents of Lesbos now suffer "psychological and moral rape" from the "seizure" of their island's name by gays, according to the complaint by Dimitris Lambrou, a local activist.

Next up: Carefree people file amicus brief.

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.   

The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

On the cause and prevention of the plague

ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies offers an interesting insight into the supposed etiology and preventative measures suggested at the time of the Great Mortality (The Black Death):

The pope sent to Paris to obtain the opinions of the medical faculty there in 1348. They studied the problem for a time and returned a report.  The good professors opined that the disaster was caused by a particularly unfortunate conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the sign of Aquarius that had occurred in 1345.  This conjunction cause hot, moist conditions, which cause the earth to exhale poisonous vapors.

The report went on to recommend steps to keep safe from the disease.  This, in part, was their prescription:

No poultry should be eaten, no waterfowl, no pig, no old beef, altogether no fat meat. . . .  It is injurious to sleep during the daytime. . . .  Fish should not be eaten, too much exercise may be injurious . . . and nothing should be cooked in rainwater. Olive oil with food is deadly. . . .  Bathing is dangerous. . . .

In time, other writings appeared from the pens of educated men on the best ways to avoid the plague.  From Italy came this advice:

  In the first instance, no man should think of death. . . .  Nothing should distress him, but all his thoughts should be directed to pleasing, agreeable and delicious things. . . .  Beautiful landscapes, fine gardens should be visited, particularly when aromatic plants are flowering. . . .  Listening to beautiful, melodious songs is wholesome. . . .  The contemplating of gold and silver and other precious stones is comforting to the heart.

Ancient relations

The Globe and Mail reports:

Scientists have found a direct link between the frozen remains of a man found in a glacier in northern B.C. and 17 people living in B.C., Yukon and Alaska.

The news came at a symposium in Victoria this past weekend, focusing on Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi', an aboriginal man whose remains were found in 1999 by hunters in Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, which is in the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations.

"The connection to the people," said Al Mackie, an archaeologist on the project, "how they know his clan, how they know who his relatives are, that's amazing. You just don't get that in archaeology. It never happens."

Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi' means Long Ago Person Found, and he's believed to have died some time between the years 1670 and 1850. His remains were revealed after a glacier started to recede.

The thing I find most astonishing about this is that the DNA testing managed to confirm the man's clan -- he was a Wolf, like his modern relatives --  proof that clan structure has survived intact for centuries and probably milennia.

John Deere walking tractor

Via Accelerating Future

It works

Olivier Vietti-Teppa has tried out a parachute based on Leonardo Da Vinci's 500-year-old design, and  by golly it works. He safely chuted 2000 feet -- although he had a backup chute just in case Da Vinci was wrong. Video at the BBC. Via Geeks Are Sexy

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.   

The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

Perfect chocolate chip cookies every time

If you read between the lines . . . Check out The Pragmatic Chef for hints at the most fabulous secret chocolate chip recipe! (It involves "tweaking" the standard recipe.) I have personal knowledge of its yumminess. They also puff up nicely, which is de rigueur for a good chocolate chip cookie, and not easily obtainable through your ordinary recipe.

Don't skimp with this one. Use parchment even if you have to go out and buy some.

Dinner

Orange roughy sauteed in butter and Survival Spice till it falls into little pieces. Rice pilaf. Broccoli. Fresh mango slices. What did you have?

Autumn crocus in ancient and medieval chemotherapy

The autumn crocus is principally known as a very pretty flower that looks a lot like a true crocus, but blooms in autumn rather than spring and contains a deadly poison called colchicine, similar to arsenic in its effect. Since autumn crocus can be mistaken for wild garlic (ramsons), we are wisely warned away from it. Ancient and medieval herbologists were well aware of its toxicity, and many physicians were reluctant to use it for that very reason. However, some eminent physicians, including Dioscorides and Avicenna, prescribed it as a "chemotherapy" treatment for cancers. The results were not by any means miraculous, but these early experimenters had the right idea. According to John Riddle in "Ancient and Medieval Chemotherapy for Cancer," Isis 73 (3): 313-330:

Autumn crocus contains a sufficient concentration of colchicines for pharmaceutical efficacy, but on the basis of modern studies, we conclude that the drug would arrest tumor mitoses in man but would not produce a complete regression in a malignant tumor. An ancient or medieval physician, treating a malignant growth topically and possibly internally, would probably observe a beneficial response but not a “cure.”

Riddle's article is fascinating and goes far beyond the single example of autumn crocus to illustrate the remarkable sophistication of these often undervalued early researchers and practitioners:

A search through the leading pharmaceutical and medical authorities of the Greco-Roman, classical Islamic, and medieval periods reveals that they recommended many of the same natural sources as those for the compounds discovered in the 1960s and 1970s and currently utilized in cancer treatments.

But here is just a little more on the history of autumn crocus "chemotherapy" to show the level of scientific awareness with which ancient and medieval physicians approached its use:

In the first century Dioscorides (fl. ca. A.D. 50-79) employed a drug made from autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale L.), the very plant investigated by A/ P. Dustin in 1938 as an antitumor agent. Dioscorides recommended that the plant (kolchikon) be “soaked in wine and administered to dissolve tumors (oidemata) and growths (phumata) not yet making pus.”
. . .
Mattaeus Platearius (d. 1161?) and Avicenna employed the plant in ways that suggest antitumoral activity. . . . Abu Mansur (fl. 968-977) said that the drug concocted from it is poisonous but dries up old sores. In light of this evidence one can conclude that prior to the thirteenth century autumn crocus was employed as an anticancer agent, but that its use was not widespread. The reluctance may have been due to the belief expressed by Hildegard [von Bingen], who said that it was more of a poison than a medicine.

Which of course it was, but all medicine is a balancing act between killing and curing, and the ancient and medieval doctors who used autumn crocus apparently knew what they were doing and got results that were promising enough for them to recommend its use to others.

"The mirror crack'd from side to side"

Lovely setting of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" by Loreena McKennitt. Via Unlocked Wordhoard

Pee diagnostics

In the Middle Ages, physicians used the appearance of a patients' urine as a key diagnostic:

— During the Middle Ages, when anatomy studies were rare and very few postmortem examinations were done, urine was one of the few diagnostic tools available

— One textbook listed 20 possible colours

— Belief in urine analysis began in the late classical era, around AD500, and lasted unchallenged into the Renaissance, when doctors were at last permitted to dissect bodies

Now the Times Online (which also provided the list above) reports on the diagnostic potential of studying the metabolites in urine via spectroscopy (a high-tech version of peering at pee):

A [research] team . . . has completed the first worldwide study of the metabolites (breakdown products) that are found in urine, reflecting the diet, inheritance and the lifestyle of the people from whom it came. They call such studies “metabolomics” by analogy with genomics, which looks at all the genes that make up the human species, and proteomics, which does the same for proteins.

The study used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to compare racial and national groups by the composition of their urine. From Japan, Beijing, Corpus Christi, Belfast and West Bromwich, urine differs in subtle ways that could provide a powerful new way of linking diet and health.The metabolites they found come from microbes in the gut, from diet and from the metabolism of the host.

The team believes that the research may provide the basis for a “metabolome-wide association” approach to help to understand interactions between lifestyles, environment and genes and how they determine diseases.

The manuscript illumination is from a thirteenth century Oxford text by Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-'Ibadi, 809?-873 (known as Joannitius) called Isagoge Johannitii in Tegni Galeni. It shows "A physician with a flask of urine, possibly comparing it to pictures or descriptions of variously colored urine in a book." From the National Library of Medicine. Hat tip to Unlocked Wordhoard.

These little piggies go "wheeeee"

Actually, they don't because they're dead, but you get the point. Via Web Park

Murdered for tea

Via Weird India:

In yet another case of mob violence, a tea shop owner was beaten to death by a group of youths for delay in serving tea in Bihar's Araria district, the police said on Thursday.

The police said some youths were angered by the delay in serving tea. They first beat up Qayum's son Bittu. When Qayum intervened to rescue his son, they severely beat him with bamboo stick and bricks, they said. He died on the way to hospital and his son was admitted to the hospital for treatment, the police said.

Georgia is pissed

Via Wired. Ramifications, if any?

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.   

The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

The Nuts of Saint Philibert

St. Philibert (c. 608–685) was the founder of Jumièges Abbey. His feast day is either the 20th or 22nd of August, which is the day when hazelnuts are traditionally gathered, and that might very well be the reason that hazelnuts are also called filberts.

Chaperon

The headgear this man is wearing is called a chaperon -- related to the modern French word chapeau. The chaperon could be a simple hood or a very elaborate one with a liripipe or hanging point so long that it had to be wound around the head to avoid tripping over it.

The picture is from the Chapel Saint-Erige, probably completed in the year 1451, a time when chaperons were extremely fashionable throughout Europe.

It was not until the early part of the eighteenth century that people began to use the word chaperon or chaperone to designate elderly aunts, ladies-in-waiting, or other persons charged with making sure that young people didn't get into the sort of mischief they are likely to get into when left to their own devices.

Apparently, the term was originally metaphorical. The chaperon protected the young person the way the hood protected the head.

Fire ants play possum

Dave Mosher of LiveScience reports:

When threatened by danger, [young fire ants] will play dead to fake out an attacker.

"No one has ever reported this before, and it was a big shock to me," said Deby Cassill, an evolutionary biologist at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. "Ants from an attacking colony will come up to inspect them, and they'll be curled up just like a dead ant. Then moments later they uncurl and walk away."

Mostly-vegetarian serial wildlife killer arrested

Salem News reports:

A Prineville [OR] man arrested Friday for numerous wildlife-related crimes in what one trooper described as a "serial-type killing of wildlife."

Oregon State Police Fish & Wildlife Division investigators say that during the past several years north of Prineville, over a dozen deer have been found dead after they were shot and left to waste beside Forest Service Roads.

In August 2007, the OSP department aircraft helped locate a suspect spotlighting in the general area where these deer were found.

OSP Fish & Wildlife troopers contacted the suspect identified as 60-year old Ronald A. Livermore of Prineville. . . .

Investigators believe Livermore, who admits he is primarily a vegetarian, would usually drive around in the darkness shining his spotlight, and when he saw eyes he would just shoot at them and then drive on looking for more.

Pigeon control measures slow to take effect

Waiting . . . waiting . . . Via FYE

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.   

The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

Shadow pictures

Pink Tentacle has a wonderful post on kage-e or "shadow pictures,"

a popular form of Edo-period woodblock print — were appreciated by children and adults and commonly used as party gags. These pictures consist of two parts: a “shadow” image and a “real” image. The shadow image, which typically bears the shape of a common, easily identifiable object, is viewed first. The real image, viewed second, reveals the surprising true identity of the shadow.

Here’s a nice example by ukiyoe master Kuniyoshi (ca. 1852). It shows what appear to be the silhouettes of goldfish…

John Tiptoft

John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, was most famous for the  unsavory behavior he exhibited during his tenure as Constable of England from 1462-1467. During an upswing in the Yorkist fortunes in the Wars of the Roses, Tiptoft gained his reputation as the Butcher of England. Here is one famous incident recounted in the Warkworth Chronicle:

And after this the Kynge Edwarde came to Southamptone, and commawndede the Erle of Worcetere to sitt and juge suche menne as were taken in the schyppes, and so xx. persones of gentylmen and yomenne were hangede, drawne, and quartered, and hedede; and after that thei hanged uppe by the leggys, and a stake made scharpe at bothe endes, whereof one ende was putt in att bottokys, and the other ende ther heddes were putt uppe one; for whiche the peple of the londe were gretely displesyd; and evere afterwarde the Erle of Worcestre was gretely behatede emonge the peple, for ther dysordinate dethe that he used, contrarye to the lawe of the londe.

And after this King Edward came to Southhampton and commanded the Earl of Worcester to sit and judge such men as were taken in the ships, and so twenty persons, including gentlemen and yeomen, were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and beheaded; after that they [were] hanged up by the legs and a stake made sharp at both ends, one end of which was put in at the buttocks and the other end their heads were put upon; for which the people of the land were greatly displeased; and ever afterward the Earl of Worcester was greatly hated among the people for the "disordinate death [penalty]" that he used, contrary to the law of the land.

Tiptoft apparently learned his impalement techniques during a sojourn in Italy*, where he also acquired an education in less bloody matters and a fine collection of manuscripts.

According to the Worcester Household:

On the readeption of Henry VI in 1470, Edward IV fled to France. Tiptoft was unfortunately unable to escape with his king and was caught whilst attempting to get money, taken from the Treasury, to Edward in order to help him raise forces to regain the throne. He and a small band of his retainers were found disguised as shepherds and taken prisoner. Brought before John de Vere, son of the Earl of Oxford whom Tiptoft had attainted and executed a few years earlier, he was found guilty of treason and beheaded at the Tower of London on 18th October 1470. He was accorded an elaborate execution, his scaffold being decked out with garlands and expensive cloths. Even though the Lancastrians hated Tiptoft, they still held him in awe and regarded him, rightfully, as an honourable and noble lord and dangerous and incorruptible adversary. At his execution he asked the executioner to take of his head with three blows for the sake of the Holy Trinity.

*It is sometimes suggested that Tiptoft got the idea for impalement from Vlad Tepes, who was active at the same time, but it is more likely that the fashion of putting your enemies on sharp sticks came from the Turks originally and filtered down to Tiptoft independently of Vlad, who unlike Tiptoft, didn't kill his victims first.

Pierre in his wetsuit

When Pierre, a 25-year-old African penguin started losing his feathers, he was unable to swim in the pool at the California Academy of Sciences, where he resides. Now he has been outfitted with a custom-made wetsuit:

Since then, he has gained weight, grown back feathers on his hind parts and is again acting like his feisty, alpha-male self. On a recent visit, Pierre waddled around the tank, taking brief dips and standing on a rock next to his mate.  AP/Discovery News Photo credit AP/Eric Risberg.

Anne Frank card found

A card sent by Anne Frank in 1937 has been found in an antique store in Amsterdam. The caption translates as "Much Luck in the New Year." From the Anne Frank Foundation via Cronaca

Do-support: It's not a type of hair gel

If you went back about 600 years or so, you'd find that the word "do" was a reasonably unconflicted, straightforward, happy little verb, which most of the time did nothing more than act as a synonym for "perform," "act," or "accomplish." We still use it that way of course. We say "Do the equation," "Do my laundry," "I'll have to do something about the moths in the pantry," etc.

It was also called upon to perform auxiliary duties in positive indicative sentences (like "Then he did play the flute most winningly") or positive imperatives (as in "Do you now take up the sword for Henry.") Now we never use the latter function (unless we're being purposefully archaic) and we only use the former for certain kinds of emphasis, such as "Yes, he DID play the flute" in response to a contrary claim.

As the age of Chaucer gave way to the ages of Shakespeare and Milton, some very strange and wonderful things happened to the English language. One of these was the Great Vowel Shift, which made us stop talking like Frenchmen and start talking like us. Another was the release of "do" from its duties as a positive auxiliary and its capture and enslavement for use in negative and interrogative functions. This rearrangement in the verbal duty roster occurred over several centuries and was pretty much complete by the end of the eighteenth century.

In days of old when knights were bold, they could say things like "Why pickest thou thy nose, varlet?" "A knight pickest not his nose," or "Pick not thy nose, thou surly churl." Today, we can still say, "Why pick you your nose?" "He picks not his nose," and "Pick not your nose," but people tend to point at us and laugh when we do. That is because a "do" auxiliary is now required to form questions, negative statements, and negative commands -- unless the main verb is "is" (and sometimes "has" if you're British or a bit old fashioned). We can still say, "What is it?" but we have to say "What does it do?" "What does he have?" and "What do you mean?" Things get a little trickier with "Where has he gone?" (British) and "Where did he go?" (American), but this discrepancy gives us a peek into the process of change as it must have appeared to the people of an earlier era when "do"-volution was in full swing.

Just imagine it:

Old guy: Where went they? I see them not.
Young guy: I don't know. Why do you ask?

And that's what we language types call "do-support."

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The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

Mitochondrial split suggests near-divergence in human species

BBC reports:

Ancient humans started down the path of evolving into two separate species before merging back into a single population, a genetic study suggests.

The genetic split in Africa resulted in distinct populations that lived in isolation for as much as 100,000 years, the scientists say. . . .

The latest conclusions are based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA in present-day African populations. This type of DNA is the genetic material stored in mitochondria - the "powerhouses" of cells.

It is passed down from a mother to her offspring, providing a unique record of maternal inheritance.

"We don't know how long it takes for hominids to fission off into separate species, but clearly they were separated for a very long time," said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project.

"They came back together again during the Late Stone Age - driven by population expansion." . . .

A major split occurred near the root of the tree as early as 150,000 years ago.

On one side of this divide are the mitochondrial lineages now found predominantly in East and West Africa, and all maternal lineages found outside Africa.

On the other side of the divide are lineages predominantly found in the Khoi and San (Khoisan) hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa.

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.   

The night owl is curious

About pranks and hijinks,
musings and mutterings.

And the door is open all night.

A wing thing

From Allison Barrie at Fox:

It weighs only 30 pounds and can be fully weaponized for assault and rescue. It has a 6-foot jet-wing that is steered with handheld rotary controls connected to its rudder. And it can hide more than 100 pounds of combat gear in a built-in compartment.

The Gryphon attack glider, designed to penetrate combat zones at 135 miles per hour, could revolutionize the art of parachuting.

A story to watch

The WSJ reports:

What really happened in the Syrian desert near the Euphrates River on the night of September 6, 2007? The Bush Administration is finally due to answer that question today when it briefs Members of Congress. We've been hearing, and the press is now reporting, that the Administration will confirm that Israel bombed what the U.S. believes was a nascent plutonium-producing nuclear reactor being built with North Korea's assistance.

Scientific researches!

This print by James Gillray (1757-1815) is captioned Scientific Researches! _ New Discoveries in PNEUMATICKS ! _ or _ New Discoveries in the Powers of Air! From the British Museum Prints Archive

Tom Molineaux (1784-1818)

This is a glazed Staffordshire pottery figurine of Thomas Molineaux, boxing champion of England in the early 19th century. One of a pair, the other figure is Thomas Cribb who Molineaux famously fought on 28 September 1811. The fight went to eleven rounds. Cribb won, and Molineaux ended the fight with a broken jaw. This was the second and most famous of their fights. The figurine comes from Staffordshire and dates from the early 19th century. -- Windows on Warwickshire

Illustrator Thomas Rowlandson captured -- or caricatured -- the action in a print (Glazer Gallery) captioned "Rural Sports, A Milling Match Took Place at Thisselton Gap in the County of Rutland Septr. 28 1811. betwixt Cribb and Molineaux on a 25 foot Stage and was the second Public contest between these two Pugilists. It lasted 19 Minutes and 10 Seconds and was decicive [sic.] in favour of Cribb."

Here are the rules these fighters played by:

• Fights are with bare fists.
• No kicking, biting, gouging, or elbowing.
• Grappling and throws are allowed above the waist.
• A round ends when one fighter is knocked down. Fighters are given 30 seconds to rest, and the next round begins
• There are no judges to score the bout. The fight ends only with complete unconsciousness from one of the fighters or when a fighter quits.

(This link also contains a round-by-round description of an earlier fight between Cribb and Molineaux that went 39 rounds.)

Molineaux was in fact an American boxer, not an English one. According to the  Virginia Historical Society:

Born a slave on a Virginia plantation, Tom Molineaux (1784–1818) fought fellow slaves while plantation owners wagered on the contests. After winning one of these matches against a rival, Molineaux was granted his freedom and the sum of $500. By 1809, he had traveled to New York and subsequently to England where he pursued a title in London's boxing rings. Two notorious fights with English champion Tom Cribb in 1810 and 1811 won him a place in boxing history. Molineaux is considered the second notable American boxer, preceded by his Virginia-born trainer, Bill Richmond.

Molineaux was an alcoholic and died of liver failure in Dublin. His career is fictionalized by George MacDonald Fraser in Black Ajax.

Bare knuckles, 49 rounds

The caption of this  Thomas Rowlandson print  reads:

Boxing Match for 200 Guineas betwixt DUTCH SAM and MEDLEY fought 31 May 1810, on MOULSEY HURST near HAMPTON

The Concourse of people exceeded any thing we have ever witnessed. The Spectators were computed at ten thousand. At one O'Clock the Champions entered the ring,and Sam had for his second Harry Lee, whilst Joe Ward officiated for Medley, after a severe and bloody contest of 49 Rounds Victory was decided in favour of Sam.

From the  Prints Archive of the British Museum

"Call an ambulance, please"

English lessons with the Zuikin girls, via Bug Girl

Charles II in calligraphy

From the British Museum Prints Database via BibliOdyssey, which has more calligraphic portraits and commentary. I am also reminded of BibliOdyssey's earlier post on Islamic Zoocaligraphy (and my own whimsical response). Here's a sample of that genre from a website on Turkish calligraphy:

Caption: The script means "In the name of God" and forms a bird; its neckband reads O Merciful, O Compassionate."

The door is open . . .