The story
From the Matson Collection, which holds thousands of photographs by the American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem, the Library of Congress keeps this close-up of the Kaaba under the title “Mecca, ca. 1910. Close-up of the Kaaba”.
The catalogue describes the negative as a copy, so the photograph may have been copied from an older original.
Look again: Compare this close-up with the 1880 photograph in the archive: which details are clearer here?
What do we know? What don’t we know?
What we know:
- The glass negative is held by the Library of Congress in the Matson Collection, and the record dates it to about 1910.
- The record’s rights statement reads: “No known restrictions on publication.”
What we do not know, or cannot be sure of:
- Who took the original photograph: the catalogue describes the negative as a “copy neg.”, so it may be copied from an older photograph.
- The exact date: “ca. 1910” is the archive’s estimate.
- “No known restrictions” is not an explicit licence, so the item awaits a rights review before wider public use.