Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify the functions of different kinds of art works in past and present societies. The museum offers three cases from the Islamic past: a script used for copying the Qur'an and for monuments, coins that carry a message, and inscriptions on the gates and facades of Cairo. Examples from other societies and from today come from your class. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B2.1 identify the functions of various types of art works […] in past and present societies
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
What job was the work doing?
For each record, write one sentence on what the work was made to do, and one on who was meant to see or use it.
Does one work have more than one function?
Choose one record and list every function the record suggests. Then name a work from today that does the same job, and say how it differs.
Go deeper
Read one coin closely. The booklet Islamic Coins, published in Doha, describes a Ghurid coin struck in Afghanistan, at Nimruz or Herat, for Sultan Ghiyath al-Din's victories over the Khwarazmians in 597 AH 2. It was meant to let people taste the victory by recording it on the chief emblem of kingship, with the motto "God is most high" 2. The booklet defines such coins, which the record calls propaganda (literally "media") coins, as coins put into circulation officially by the sultan or ruler for the occasion they were struck for 2.
How do we know?
The record reports what the booklet says the coin was for; it does not say who handled the coin or how people reacted. The booklet gives a second case, a Seljuk dinar that it calls a publicity issue, struck for some occasion and inscribed with the Throne Verse 3. The record says no more about that coin. Ask which of the two cases tells you more about its audience, and why.
Think about it
The booklet says the Ghurid coin was meant to let people taste a victory. Give a reason, and answer the objection that people use coins to buy things, not to read them: is a coin a good way to spread a message?
Into the museum
- Propaganda coins: the booklet's definition and its two examples.
- Kufic script: the script of the earliest dated dinars, 76 AH, and of the inscription around the Dome of the Rock.
- Monumental calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: inscriptions on the gates and facades of Cairo.
Try this
Read the records on Kufic script and propaganda coins. Pick one work, write what it was for in your own words, and quote the sentence of the record that supports you.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Kufic script have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
One script, many uses. Maryam Ekhtiar describes kufic as a family of angular scripts governed by geometric proportion. It replaced hijazi as the preferred script for copying the Qur'an until about the mid- to late tenth century. The earliest dinars, dated 76 AH, bear Qur'anic verses in an early formal kufic, and the inscription around the Dome of the Rock, 72 AH, is a dated architectural example. What jobs can one script do?
In your own words: what does Propaganda coins have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A message on a coin. The booklet published in Doha defines propaganda coins as those put into circulation either officially by the sultan or ruler for the occasion they were struck for, or unofficially by others according to their political stance toward the state. Their form was not fixed: a text, an image, a mark or a symbol. One example is a Ghurid coin of 597 AH with the motto “God is most high”. What message can a coin carry, and to whom?
I can now