Page 217 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

the astrolabist, while underneath the remains of a This globe may well have been made for the II-
lighter, probably earlier, inscription date the piece Khanid observatory established by the Mongol
at
to 1235-1236 and explain that it was made in ruler Hiilegii (d. 1265) Maragha in western
Cairo by the servant or client of al-Malik al- Iran under the direction of the astronomer Nasir
Ashraf. This lighter inscription may have been al-Din Tusi. The surface is engraved with the
deliberately erased because it was becoming pictures of the circumpolar constellations of the
effaced through wear. The 1235-1236 date is cor- northern hemisphere, and is inlaid in silver with
roborated by the star positions on the rete. In approximately 1,025 stars —those listed in the
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both inscriptions, the soubriquets al-Misri and bi- catalogue of the tenth-century astronomer Abd
Misr are not otiose as applied to the artisan, for al-Rahman al-Sufi. The globe's southern hemi-
the technique of °Abd al-Kanm, even if he was sphere is only sparingly engraved, with the oars
born in Egypt as al-Misri implies, shows that he of Argo and the hooves of Centaurus as the most
was trained elsewhere, in an area very much southerly elements. Although the figure of the
influenced by the contemporary metalwork of constellation Ophioucus has an odd pointed cap
Mosul in Iraq. He owes his title al-Maliki al-Ash- with three concentric rings, most of the constel-
rafito his association with al-Malik al-Ashraf lation figures are very similar in details to the
Musa, a nephew of Saladin who reigned in the manuscript of al-Sufi's star catalogue, the Kitab
Jazira and parts of Syria (i2io-c. 1237) and for Suwar al-Kawakib al-Thabita (Bodleian Library,
whom he had made an astrolabe dated 1227-1228 Oxford), which was illustrated by his son in 1009
(Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, (see cat. 114).
ex-Comtesse de 1'Espinasse and Lewis Evans Col- The equator and the ecliptic — that is, the
lections). In 1235-1236, al-Malik al-Ashraf Musa apparent path of the sun in the heavens — are
ruled inter alia, at Damascus. The inscribed sou- graduated in degrees, making longitudes and the
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briquet (nisba) al-Mu izzi may well be associated right ascensions of the stars possible to determine.
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with another of that ruler's titles, Mu izz al- The great circles of longitude, corresponding to
stars around the North Pole. On the reverse of the Islam, "He who brings glory to Islam/' though o°, 30°, 60°, 90°, and so on, are engraved perpen-
mater is fixed the alidade, a flat ruler that turns Shihdb al-Din was not his honorific title (laqab) dicular to the ecliptic. Because the ecliptic is set
around the pole and which serves to set the and so the inscribed al-Shihdbi may relate to at an angle to the equator, the globe appears to
instrument and read off the altitude of the stars. someone quite different. Soubriquets [Nisbas] revolve on a slant as it shows the sun's apparent
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The cast suspension plaque (kursi) of this like al-Mu izzi were not necessarily drawn only daily revolution around the earth.
instrument is lobed, indented, and inlaid on both from the Ayyubids' and Mamluks' "throne
sides with silver arabesques, chased and on a names/' which they customarily took on their
stippled ground. The two rings and the central pin accession. Max Van Berchem, who did not realize
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keeping the instrument together all appear to be this fact, argued that Abd al-Karim must have
original. The rete is exceptional in showing many worked for two princes, al-Malik al-Ashraf and al-
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of the star-pointers as figural, including Scorpio, Malik al-Mu izz, and noted that the only occasion
Taurus, Cygnus, Pisces, and Hercules (en gona- on which two rulers of these titles coincided was
sin): they are heavily inlaid in chased silver and in Egypt 1250-1251, when the Ayyubid al-Malik
copper. On the inner ring of the rete are abbrevi- al-Ashraf Muzaffar al-Din Musa n was deposed
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ated Latin designations of the Zodiac signs in by the Bahri Mamluk Mu izz al-Din Aybak. Van
Gothic lettering. The three plaques and the inner Berchem's thesis, though ingenious, still does not
face of the mater, which include readings for account for al-Shihabi and is also difficult to rec-
Cairo, Kufa, Damascus, and Baghdad, are also oncile with the date given in the inscription,
inlaid in silver and copper. 1235-1236, which is confirmed well enough by
The back is elegantly inlaid with the signs of the position of the stars identified on the rete.
the Zodiac. Certain peculiarities of form —Capri- J.M.R.
corn is on its back with a fish tail, Aquarius and
Taurus are both shown sideways, and Virgo is a
bald giant —suggest that the figures were drawn
without reference to either a star manual, like the 11 3
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tenth-century astonomer Abd al-Rahman al- CELESTIAL GLOBE
Sufi's Kitab Suwar al-Kawdkib al-Thdbita (cat.
114), or of a celestial globe (cat. 113). Engraved 12/5-1276
abbreviations of the Latin months were added western Iran
later in Gothic letters. The remainder of the back brass, hollow-cast
2
is engraved with astrological tables, but only as diameter 24 (9 /s)
two half-circles. Consequently, this example lacks signed by Muhammad b. Hilal al-munajjim
the diversity of information on contemporary (astronomer) al-Mawsili
astolabes whose backs are engraved as quadrants. references: Dorn 1830, 2:2-371; Drechsler 1873;
The alidade, which has an undulating trefoil scroll Repertoire chronologique 1941, no. 4708; Mayer
inlaid in silver, is a European replacement. 1956, 68; Finder-Wilson 1976, 83-101; Savage-
Smith 1985
The engraved inscription tells us that this
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instrument was made by Abd al-Kanm al-Misri, The Trustees of the British Museum, London
216 CIRCA 1492