Damascus anecdotes is a research blog that is devoted to Mamluk and Ottoman historical sources: chronicles, biographies, topographies. It will approach these sources both as texts and in their physical form as manuscripts. It will thus provide a – however restricted – tool to access those works from different vantage points.Damascus Anecdotes is furthermore a product of my own research project on Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn (d. 1546) and the role his historiographical oeuvre had for his wider work and legacy. Posts will deal with short descriptions of his works (and the manuscripts we have of them), biographical sketches of his contemporaries, friends, and antagonists. They will also inform about the progress of the project itself, in the form of bibliographies, announcements for new publications, and new findings in the archives.Most of all, Damascus Anecdotes shall be about the fun of reading these materials, the exploration and treasure hunts that are a large part of research. All too often, exciting finds have to be discarded in publications for sake of the argument. Here, however, they shall receive their due place, one they deserve as much as in those texts, where they stem from.