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Volume 31, Number 4 July/August 1980

In This Issue

July/August 1980
The Frescoes of Amra
Written by Patricia Baker
Photographed by Vanessa Stamford

In the deserts of Jordan, some 60 miles east of Amman, a team of experts works to preserve the precious frescoes of Qasr 'Amra—where Umayyad princes once bathed in beauty.

 
A Harvest of Scents
Written and photographed by John Feeney

Today, as they have for five millennia, the perfumers of Egypt harvest and process the flowers and herbs of the Nile Delta—a delicate harvest of scents that perfumes the whole world.

 
The Koran in the Cotswolds
Written by John Lawton
Photographed by Ian Yeomans

Between peals of church bells, in England's Cotswold Hills, an English interpretation of the Holy Koran has been recorded—on 41 hours of tape—for the Muslims of Britain.

 
The Pox Upon Her
Written by Susan McHenry
Illustrated by Michael Grimsdale

Jennergot the credit—and deserved to; but Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 79 years before, and the Ottomans before her, had already fought and conquered the ravages of smallpox.

Riyadh on the Move
Written by Stephen D. Hayes
Photographed by S. M. Amin

Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, is moving—to the north in an explosion of urban expansion that is transforming the city into a modern metropolis at an unprecedented pace.