| January
16, 2004 - page 2
what I had expected it to be. The thing that sparked my interest
most was the chiseled tile, since I had not encountered that in
my reading. The technique itself seems quite difficult but simplistic
at the same time; the chisels themselves are sharpened on a large
flat stone. Perhaps it is not as old as the other techniques, since
there is a marked lack of it in the older tiled spaces we have encountered,
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though it is more expensive and would
have therefore been more desirable if it had existed during the construction
of those monuments.
We experienced another tea-filled Sufi drumming ceremony tonight.
The man brewing the tea was apparently wearing a costume representative
of slaves who used to be responsible for his job. He’s just
nuts; they all are. He danced around the room with a 3-foot tall basin
of burning incense! It made me more than a little nervous, to be sure.
The rest of the drummers were wearing ceremonial garments like those
worn by their leader while he was writing philosophy in a cave. Overall,
it was another enthralling and intense experience.
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