Mourning with Frame Drum and Harp in a Fourteen-Century Persian Manuscript: Historical Background and Ethnographic Evidence

The third volume of the Bodleian Library’s manuscript of Kitāb i Samak ʿayyār, a Persian illustrated novel dating no later than the 14th century, depicts a mourning scene with two female musicians playing the harp and frame drum on folio 191b (Ouseley 381). This exceptional document allows for a better understanding of the relationship between literary, figurative, and ethnographic sources from different eras, in a wide area encompassing the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The analysis of the story depicted in the manuscript and the relationship between text and illustrations provides a context for Ouseley 381 within the vast and intertwined history of oral storytelling accompanied by illustrated scenes and the traditions of ritualized weeping accompanied by musical instruments.