"Thinking Turkic
Leader
Saturday January 22, 2005
The Guardian
One of the most striking objects on display in the Royal Academy of Arts's exhibition Turks - which opens to the public today - is also one of the tiniest. Less than two inches high, the ebony and ivory box has intricate gold filigree and turquoise sides set with rubies, secured with a miniature gold chain and hinge. Made in the middle of the 16th century in Istanbul, it was designed as a reliquary to hold sakal-i merif - a hair from the beard of the prophet Muhammad. From a single hair one can draw the thread of history that stretches along the Silk Road from Asia's steppes, from Samarkand to Mauritania, ending in Istanbul. "
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