Mamluk Scroll or Going Out of the Comfort Zone

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the Signet of the East with a potential scroll assignment. Pandemic had me scale back a lot of my scribing and participation because of home life etcetera, so I was eager to get back into it. The added benefit was that this particular award was for my protégé sister (mostly mamluk persona) so I was doubly excited to do it.

Challenges

Right out of the gate I knew I was going to have a couple of challenges. My protégé sister has an undecided persona but tends to the Mamluk and Arab bent. Safe to say, not my usual style. Not even a style I had ever done before. So I had to do some digging to find an exemplar to inspire me or copy from. In addition, the wording style is different and there were no examples of SCA specific wordings for awards for those cultures. Not only would I have to come up with something, but then I’d have to translate it coherently into French, her primary language. Lastly, time was a huge factor. I don’t do calligraphy and so I had roughly a week to get the award done and handed off to the calligrapher to get it done on time. It was a hair stressful.

Who?

While I appreciate the lovely clothing and art that comes out of the middle and near east, both past and present, I have to be honest and say that my concept of that region’s history is not my forte. I figured since I was going to be reproducing the art of these people I should know more and was able to stumble onto a stub from the Britannica website that brought me to this lovely snippit:

Mamluk, also spelled Mameluke, slave soldier, a member of one of the armies of slaves established during the Abbasid era that later won political control of several Muslim states. Under the Ayyubid sultanate, Mamluk generals used their power to establish a dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Mamluk”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Apr. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mamluk. Accessed 10 May 2022.

There’s more to that article but at least I had a little background and a general sense of what to look for or what I was looking at.

Mamluk Inspirations

I have never done a scroll in this style so I really had my work cut out for me. It’s intimidating to tackle something new and I forgotten that. I turned to my friend, Google. I had some idea of what I was looking for and after a while narrowed it down to the ones I liked best. (See below.) The real deciding factor was time. I Iove the pages with the knot work and the more carpet style pages. My fear was that I wouldn’t get it done in time with all the small details. I ended up going with the simpler, smaller blue, red and gold find.

Wording

Words were going to be a trick and a half. I wanted to make it true in style to fit the scroll and sound at least somewhat like it matched what it was being put on. Through my wanderings on the internet I found a poem from the 1100’s that was written by a woman, Ḥafṣa bint al-Ḥājj ar-Rakūniyya. One of the few extant women poets of the time and place, Ḥafṣa bint al-Ḥājj ar-Rakūniyya’s reply to Abu Jaafar’s love poem was short enough that the text would fit and was a fairly simple eight syllable per line and rhyming couplet model. While from much earlier (1160’s) I thought it appropriate for the persona and person I was making this for. So it’s a bit of a Frankenscroll but I think the wording worked well!

The Work Begins

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to trace pieces of this particular scroll as the intricate gold bits were too faint. Also I was planning on re-sizing the overall page to fit the pergamenata that I had. I did briefly contemplate cutting the 11″x14″ sheet in half but then I was concerned that I would have to get two pages drawn out and painted in a short time. I opted instead to resize it and make it bigger so that it would all fit on one page.

Rulers and Free Hand

I first drew in my half inch guidelines all around the edge of the paper draft to allow for framing. Then I scaled up the image and drew in the text block area and corresponding border area. I tried to follow the general gist of the gold work on the border of the extant Mamluk piece. Unfortunately, even photoshop didn’t help and a lot of the gold work was faded and too faint to make more than an educated guess as to the rendering.

I had two good examples between the two pages so I used those and filled in the rest with bits I stole from other spots on the edge. Since I made the overall image larger I did have to fill in some extra spots as well and so tried to stay with the overall shapes that I had been using in the rest of the border.

When Enough is Enough

Thankfully this was all done on a paper draft to start. I fiddled with the corners quite a bit and got one to look semi decent and just decided to rotate the perg version around so that I didn’t have to free draw the rest of the draft which would save me time. At this point, I stopped for the night as I knew that if I started painting late at night I would definitely make mistakes that I couldn’t afford. I wanted to make sure that my eyes and brain were on the same page, especially since I wasn’t super familiar with the style.

Timing is everything though. I suffer from some carpel tunnel issues and arthritis so I tend to break my work into manageable chunks of time. I’ve found that just pushing though will often result in not my best work and I tend to be in pain after. It’s not worth it. Rather, I just allot myself a little more time to get it done.

Lines and Blocks

I went ahead and ended up working my way from the inside out, like I do on most scrolls. It just so ended up that it meant painting the larger block of color first. These were easy. They also provided me with a framework for the gold border bits.

You can barely see it in this picture but there were some spots where the gold was a little faint or light. I ended up going back and repainting certain parts two or three times to get the coverage to a point where I wanted it. I have never had this issue before with this particular gold, which was interesting.

Results

Unfortunately, I kind of am the worst at documenting progress after a certain point. I get so into the project that I forget to document as I go. This means that I don’t have further evidence of the progression of the scroll. I did manage to get a photo though of the completed scroll with calligraphy.

Good Things

I am quite happy with how some of the finer lines done in gold came out. I’ve been working on trying to keep my lines dainty or light as I tend to have a heavy hand. There are some places that clearly need a little lighter hand. I also can spot the difference spots when I was painting later at night or was more tired. My had gets heavier and my lines aren’t as straight as they could be. Lesson learned…I hope!

I also strayed from the original. There are supposed to be more of the little blue spikes on the sides but I accidentally made them gold. The perg is forgiving enough that I probably could have carefully scraped them off and repainted them. I didn’t for the sole reason that I didn’t want to somehow be overzealous and end up damaging the perg, which was my last sheet. Initially, I also had the silver broach at the top or bottom of the scroll. I decided rather late in the design to move it to the side as I didn’t feel like I had enough space on the short edges to make it large enough to be noticeable or impactful.

I was a little concerned over the calligraphy but Master Aleksei pulled out a fabulous pusedo-Arabic hand and was able to write the scroll in French so that the recipient could read it. That was the icing on the cake. The little flowers and the recipient’s name in Arabic bubble letters at the top and bottom? They were added the night before it was given.

Overall Review

Overall, I’m happy with how the whole thing turned out. I’m not as intimidated by this unfamiliar style which is an added bonus and another tool to my arsenal. I will likely work on smaller elements for practice purposes though. My line work still needs help as it’s not where I want it to be. The most important thing is though that the recipient loves it and it got that unrehearsed gasp in court which always gives me the feels. More of my scrolls are on display in my art gallery if you’d like to take a look!