I thought I share a short work- in- progress update. I started on the book of Esther. There's no chapter 3:16, so I moved to chapter 4:1 as Donald E. Knuth does in his book "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated"

"When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry."

The book of Esther tells the story of a beautifull young Jewish woman who becomes queen of Persia and saves her people.

Haman, the enemy, wants to eleminate all the Jews. King Xerxes orders a decree which spells out the destruction of the Jews. When Mordechai, Esthers cousin, hears of this he rents his clothes and puts on sackcloth and ashes.

When I read this verse I knew I had to make something with burlap (hessian) fabric. As this is used to make sacks and is coarse.

I also started researching in which language the decree would have been written and. I came across: Aramaic, Old Persian (Cuneiform). It's a script the Persians invented and looks very interesting. In Iran is a piece discovered which recorded the feats of the Achaemenid king Darius the Great. I have used this script and have used papyrus (which I bought in Egypt about 12 years ago :)) The Persians most likely used papyrus to write on.

So far some background on my research. I'll show a few pictures of my progress so far!