Myron Bement Smith (MBS) envisioned the Islamic Archives as serving scholars interested not only in the Islamic world and its culture but also aspects of non-Islamic art and architecture. The materials in this subseries include not only articles, maps and bibliographies on Islamic countries and cultures but also items on non-Islamic Asia and Europe. Most of this latter material reflects his interest in architecture and buildings. MBS' own architectural research notes are organized in his Architecture File, consisting of notecards, photographs and plans arranged by architectural element. For the non-Iran material, he created a Geographic File, similar to but less complete than the Persia Geographic File [Subseries 2.2], containing notecards, bibliographies and photographs arranged alphabetically by country. He also created a chronological monuments file for each country similar to his Persian Monuments File.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
The Myron Bement Smith Collection, FSA A.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith.