Author
columns marked to indicated the 24 hours of the day
Publication Date
28 Shawwāl 691 (CE, Gregorian)
Type
Book
Language
Arabic
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
Yes
Pages Count
1
Library
Qatar Digital Library
Library Asset ID
Or 14270, ff 2v-14r
Record ID
vdc_100023698323.0x000001
Library Location
British Library: Oriental Manuscripts
Date
28 Shawwāl 691 (CE, Gregorian)
Notes
Treatise on the hydraulic and pneumatic machinery of water-clocks with eighteen diagrams, attributed to Archimedes (Ἀρχιμήδης; Archimedes; fl. 3rd century BC). The title page gives the title wrongly as Archimedes' Book of the Working of the Hours (
Kitāb Arshimīdas fī ‘amal al-sā‘āt
). This early known copy of the text was unknown to the text’s translator, Donald R. Hill (1976). The treatise is a compilation material from Greek, Byzantine, Persian and Arabic sources, and some sections may in fact be derived from Archimedes. This copy is defective at the end, and ends abruptly and without a
colophon
Section at the end of a manuscript text.
. Numerous owners’ notes are found on f. 2r. There is a partially legible seal on endpaper i
recto
The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'.
.
Begins (f. 2v, lines 1-4):
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and in Him we seek glory
Archimedes said after praising God and the prophets for him, “I did not see.”
People's sayings about making benkamat girnama (!)
I can't play (!)
This book and its work are extremely investigative
Ends (f. 14r, lines 4-5):
... to close to the bottom so as not to spoil the raising of the water
With some instruments and this is a picture of the horn...
Illustrations (diagrams):
Middle section of water-clock, showing from top down the drum, float, float's container and the sump container (f. 4r);
Semi-circular plate indicating the twelve signs of the zodiac (f. 5a);
Middle section of water clock as on folio 4r, with semi-circular plate indicating the twelve signs of the zodiac attached (f. 4v);
Top section of water clock, showing a man's head whose eyes change color on the hour and a bird's head that drops balls onto a
cymbal
A percussion instrument consisting of thin round plates.
, and the mechanisms that drive these devices (f. 6v);
Top section of a water-clock, showing the man's head as on folio 6v, flanked by columns marked to indicate the 24 hours of the day (f. 7v);
Automaton representing a bound captive (above) and his executioner holding a sword (below) (f. 8v);
Automaton of an executioner on horseback (f. 10r);
Statues of men that rise and fall on rods to indicate the hours of the day inscribed on columns, and the mechanism that drives them (f. 10v);
Mechanical snakes that emerge from holes at the foot of a mountain on the hour and the mechanism that drives them (f. 12r);
A tree containing birds which emit cries on the hour when the snakes on folio 12r emerge from their holes and the mechanism that drives them (f. 13r);
Flautist automaton (f. 14r).
Erişim Koşulları
Unrestricted
ilgili birincil kaynaklar
Bodleian Library Marsh 669.
Seçilmiş kaynakça
Translation:
On the Construction of Water-Clocks. Kitāb Arshimīdas fī ‘amal al-binkamāt
, Donald R. Hill ed. and trans., Turner and Devereux Occasional Papers no. 4 (London, Turner and Devereux, 1976)
Study:
Krause, Max, 'Stambuler Handschriften islamischer Mathematiker (Einge-gangen Juni 1935)',
Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik
. Abt. B. Astronomie und Physik (Berlin) 3, 1936, pp. 437-532 on p. 442ff [reprinted in:
Islamic Mathematicsand Astronomy,
vol. 83, Miscellaneous Texts and Studies on Islamic Mathematics and Astronomy VIII, ed. by Fuat Sezgin, Mazen Amawi, Carl Ehrig-Eggert and Eckhard Neubauer (Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 1998) pp. 237-332]
