Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Arabic Machine Manuscript

anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de i


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de 1


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de 2


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de 3


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de 4


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de a


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de b


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de c


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de g


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de m


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de n


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de o


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de p


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de s


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de t


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de u


anonym., ms. or. fol. 3306 arabisches manuscript libcoll.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

I love these old mystery schematics where the idiosyncratic drawing style and lack of a readily identifiable energy input system often leave me fairly puzzled as to the true context or viability of the machines. I'm not necessarily sure that a knowledge of Arabic would enlighten us to any great extent.

Although there are a few astrological images, this anonymous manuscript is almost totally devoted to fluid dynamics and mechanics. I can't find any background to the work and suppose it was produced somewhere between the 16th to 19th centuries.
  • All the images here are cropped details from the source pages at Max Planck Digital Library where the ~300 page manuscript is listed simply as 'Anonym., Ms. or. fol. 3306 ,o. J.' ('or.' being Oriental)
  • The above images (fairly large in size) have also been uploaded to Wikimedia.
  • I presume this manuscript copies from earlier scholars, most notably Al-Jazari.

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