 My name is Michael Erdman, and I'm one of the four curators of the British Library's exhibition, Writing, Making Your Mark. My favorite item in the exhibition, Writing, Making Your Mark, is a letter from Mosul, Iraq, written in about 1881. The author of the letter is probably someone named Jeremiah Shammer, who possibly was a priest in the Church of the East, one of the dominant Christian denominations of Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Western Iran, and Eastern Syria. The letter is unique, the letter is something that stands out for me, because it is something that is written in two different languages, in two different scripts, and it really shows the way that people, ordinary people, people who were involved in commerce, in education, in religion, would write in different ways, in different times, for different purposes, and that this was just a normal part of their everyday lives. Jeremiah Shammer's letter from Mosul is a fascinating piece, because it challenges our preconceptions about what is a living or dead script. At the top, we have Arabic, which we all know is a script that's quite vibrant, and used by over 200 million people today. At the bottom here, we have the Syriac script, which some might consider moribund or dead. What we can see here is that the script is neither dead nor alive, it just depends on people using it, and Jeremiah Shammer has decided to write his letter, reviving the use of the script, encouraging its use in modern contexts, and showing that really writing is within the power, and the use of the script is within the power of every individual who knows it, to use it and express themselves as humans have done over 5,000 years.