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Screenshot of the site's map feature showing the Indian Ocean in the Industrial and Imperial era with markers for different objects, goods, and places highlighted on the site

Indian Ocean History

Review
It is easily the most comprehensive website for studying and teaching Indian Ocean history currently available.
Logo and name for the International Dunhuang Project

International Dunhuang Project

Review
The IDP, based at the British Library in London, is an international collaborative effort to catalog, conserve, and encourage research of Silk Road artifacts. This website, which currently displays around 20,000 digitized images of these artifacts, is one product of this larger effort.
The ruins of Great Zimbabwe's elliptical building

Internet African History Sourcebook

Review
The site provides broad chronological and geographic coverage, with a particularly impressive list of sources for ancient Egypt and Greek and Roman Africa. It is a gateway to an abundance of information.
Close-up image of an early modern Ottoman sajjadah rug

Islamic Carpet made in Ottoman Turkey at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Source

This carpet is a specific type of carpet woven in the Islamic world called a sajjadah or prayer rug. Typically, these carpets will have one or more arches decorating its center field representing early mosque architecture or the mihrab a niche in a wall that directs the worshipper towards the holy site of Mecca. Worshippers use these types of rugs to make their daily prayers and orient... Read More »
Image of a sixteenth-century Ottoman carpet showing a portion of the carpet's main design field that contains a triple arch design with slender double columns and a hanging lamp in the central archway

Islamic Carpet made in Safavid Iran

Source

This carpet called the Qazvin Carpet (also known as the "Salting Carpet") was made in late-sixteenth century Safavid Iran likely in a royal atelier. The carpet was meant to be used with an outdoor garden space and it's intricately designed floral field and poetry woven into the margins are evidence of the nature of its use as a sensorial object meant to be sat upon but also touched, read, and... Read More »
Close-up image of an early modern Islami Carpet

Islamic Carpets

Source

These three carpets made in the period between the 16th and 18th centuries show two distinct types of carpets produced in the Islamic World for particular culture-specific uses. While carpets in the Islamic World were made for export and global consumption, the type of carpets seen here - one with Persian inscriptions and the other two that with colonnaded designs that were used for the... Read More »
Travel Narrative Thumbnail

Islamic Empire: Travel Narrative, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Source

In the 18th century, European travelers began to enjoy increased access to international destinations, and the Ottoman Empire was a particular favorite for many. In the travel narrative of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, we see a European woman attempting to reconcile her attraction toward the exotic harem of the Turks with her feelings of increased moral superiority as a Westerner. In narratives... Read More »
A woman dressed in a kimono and hair in Japanese style sits in a room playing a shamisen. A tray with a tea set and a tobacco tray are placed next to her, and a screen is placed at her back.

Japanese Old Photographs in Bakumatsu-Meiji Period

Review
The site will be useful to instructors looking to add visual sources to enliven a discussion of Japanese history at this critical moment in which Japan confronted the threat of Western imperialism and embarked on its own urgent project of modernization.
Detail of the Journeys in Time home page

Journeys in Time, 1809 – 1822: The Diaries of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie

Review
In teaching world history courses, this site would contribute to understanding the nature of British imperial expansion in the Pacific and the business of colonial governance.
The image is of "Child with Fox Mask; Gosho Doll" from the museum's collections. It is a small, white porcelain figure of a child wearing a textile decorated with flowers. A separate image of the doll on the site shows a fox mask for it to wear.

Kyoto National Museum

Review
The museum site is accessible and user-friendly. It will be particularly valuable for instructors looking to mobilize a collection of images and objects from ancient through early modern periods of Japanese history for student exploration.

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