diff --git a/.htaccess b/.htaccess
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..cf377cec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.htaccess
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+RewriteEngine  on
+
+# rather than link to images/ha/hash and have an ugly filename,
+# we link to images/hash/tags.ext; mod_rewrite splits things so
+# that shimmie sees hash and the user sees tags.ext
+RewriteRule ^_images/([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{30})/.*\.(.*)$  images/$1/$1$2 [L]
+RewriteRule ^_thumbs/([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{30})/.*\.jpg$   thumbs/$1/$1$2 [L]
+
+# any requests for files which don't physically exist should be handled by index.php
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
+RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
+