Dr Alison Ohta is the director of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. She completed her doctoral thesis at SOAS, University of London, on bindings of the Mamluk period (1250–1516). She has lectured and published widely on the subject. Her forthcoming article in a volume of essays in honor of Professor Doris Behrens-Abouseif considers the bindings of Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri (1501–16).