My book is now available for download as an open access book (free PDF). brill.com/display/title/6988…

New open-access book: The Zoroastrian World. Download the PDF direct from the publisher: taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-e…

Adorable woodblock print of a cat and kittens. Edo period Japan. dl.ndl.go.jp/en/pid/2569349/…

In Japan, the dark marks on the moon have been likened to a rabbit pounding mochi (rice cakes). What do they look like to you? #ndldigital dl.ndl.go.jp/en/pid/2569342/…

It took less than three minutes to get Grok to convert two dozen line drawings from .jpeg to .svg. My book has A LOT of illustrations, so this just saved me a lot of time and effort.

New study hack: practice writing a dead language and converse back and forth using Grok. I've got it running Middle Chinese (Tang period), roleplaying a conversation in a tavern.

In ancient times, Japan was called Wakoku 倭國, although this was more of a territorial designation for disparate polities in the Japanese archipelago. Sometime around 660 CE, the name Nippon 日本 appears in Chinese and Korean diplomatic records. After this time, Japan increasingly adopted many aspects of Chinese culture and a centralized state. There are some extant Chinese illustrations of visitors from Wakoku. 蕭繹（傳）職貢圖, 唐閻立本王會圖, 五代南唐顧德謙摹梁元帝番客入朝圖.

The associations between specific stones and planets given in a Greco-Egyptian papyrus. Open Access volume (p. 50): escholarship.org/uc/item/965…

I'll be in China Oct 5th to 16th. Hangzhou, Hefei and Shanxi.

As a future project, I might learn Classical Syriac to write an extensive study on the influence of Syriac pharmacology in Tang materia medica.

Mercury Day 水曜日. 九曜等圖像（京都東寺觀智院藏本）dzkimgs.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SATi…

Sasanian items at the Louvre.

Zodiac dish from 16th century. Pergamon Museum, Berlin.

Fragments of Manichaean illustration. Humboldt Forum.

Two Brahmins. China, Xinjiang, Shorchuk Cave 9 (Kirin Cave). 7th-8th c. clay with pigments. Turfan expedition III (1906-1907). Humboldt Forum.

古代新疆美女，柏林亚洲艺术馆。

Old photos of Manitoba (in Canada) where I am from. My relative took them over the decades. misterbarrow.com/exhibition/…

Finding traces of Hellenistic knowledge in Tang China is always fun. I think some of the astrologers were Manichean, not just Christian.

幸田良恭季信, 不動明王. Kōda Ryōkō Suenobu (or Kōda Yoshiyasu Toshinobu, 1722-? after 1783). Fudō Myōō. Japan Edo period, dated on the back 1783.

渡辺省亭編 雑誌「美術世界」 Watanabe Seitei (1852-1918), editor and illustrator. The world of arts. Japan, Tokyo. Meiji period, 1893-1896.