If you’ve ever been in the Archives & Special Collections, you’ve probably seen the occasional “store flat” box on the shelves. Well, I see them all the time, but even I forget they’re there sometimes, so I decided to investigate!
Since these boxes usually contain delicate materials, I started on the oversize/miniatures side and opened the Qurʼān al-karīm. Written before 1940, it’s a beautifully handwritten edition, with floral endpapers. The description reads “From Hacilar village in the Karnobat district of the Burgas Province in eastern Rumelia, a distant son of Sulayman Efendi’s sacred Quran” in Ottoman Turkish. The binding is stiff maroon leather over cardboard, and the pages all have gold motifs as décor.
If you want to looks inside some of the other “store flat” boxes, the Archives & Special Collections is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 1:00-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.
By Morgan Ford