Revisiting al-Andalus

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The Astrolabe

An ancient instrument for solving problems of location and distance, as well as time

Astrolábon órganon is the word used in Ptolemaeus Syntaxis 5.1 to describe a form of armillary sphere consisting of both fixed and rotating rings for determining the ecliptic co-ordinates of stars. Also called astrolabe were two-dimensional representations of the celestial sphere: over fixed disks with a representation of the horizon of the earth (in each case for a specific geographic latitude) and its parallels up to the zenith lies a rotating representation of the heavens (called ‘spider’ or ‘net’) with zodiac and indicators for some of the brightest stars. On the back is an indicator (‘alidade’) with visor plates for calculating the height of the stars. The astrolabe allows its user to determine the hours of day and night, the positions of stars, and the height and depth of objects on earth (mountains, buildings, wells). The oldest extant descriptions of the flat, planispheric astrolabe come from Iohannes Philoponus, 6th century AD, and (in Syrian) from Severus Sebokht, c. 660 AD. Indirect references may date back as early as Theon (4th cent.). Between the 8th and the 9th centuries the Arabs appropriated the knowledge of the astrolabe. At the end of the 10th century and again in the 12th century, they passed it on to Western Europe, where astrolabes were constructed up until the 17th cent. Today, one Byzantine astrolabe (from 1062) is extant, as are some 750 Arabic-Islamic astrolabes and approximately the same number of European astrolabes.

This information is abstracted from Brill's New Pauly, the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world. For more information see www.brillsnewpauly.com or visit our website catalog: www.brill.nl/bnp
Brill’s New Pauly and the complete original Der Neue Pauly, the recognized standard reference works for students and scholars of the ancient world are also available online. This dual-language edition offers basic and advanced search facilities and is fully browsable. New English translations are added as they become available. See www.paulyonline.brill.nl for more information and a demo version.

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Publications & Services> News> Now Available> Revisiting al-Andalus

Revisiting al-Andalus

Perspectives on the Material Culture of Islamic Iberia and Beyond

Edited by Glaire D. Anderson and Mariam Rosser-Owen

Books

Available
Publication year: 2007


Series:	The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World, 34
ISBN-13 (i)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been changed from 10 to 13 digits on 1 January 2007:	978 90 04 16227 3
ISBN-10:	90 04 16227 5

Cover:	Hardback
Number of pages:	xxxvi, 304 pp 24 pp

List price:	€ 90.00 / US$ 134.00

Table of contents

List of Illustrations . vii
Contributors . xv

Introduction . xvii
Glaire D. Anderson and Mariam Rosser-Owen

Part I
1. Architecture and Urbanism in Umayyad Córdoba Madīnat al-Zahrā: Transformation of a Caliphal City .. 3
Antonio Vallejo Triano
2. The Dwellings of Madīnat al-Zahrā: a Methodological Approach . 27
Antonio Almagro
3. Villa (munya) Architecture in Umayyad Córdoba: Preliminary Considerations .. 53
Glaire D. Anderson

Part II
4. Reading the Regency: Poems in Stone: the Iconography of Āmirid Poetry, and Its ‘Petrifi cation’ on Āmirid Marbles .. 83
Mariam Rosser-Owen
5. Love in the Time of Fitna: ‘Courtliness’ and the ‘Pamplona’ Casket . 99
Cynthia Robinson

Part III
6. Uncovering Almohad Iberia: Evolution of the Andalusi Urban Landscape: from the Dispersed to the Saturated Medina .. 115
Julio Navarro and Pedro Jiménez
7. Re-Examining Almohad Economies in South-western al-Andalus through Petrological Analysis of Archaeological Ceramics . 143
Rebecca Bridgman

Part IV
8. Conquest and Colonisers: al-Andalus and Beyond in the Sixteenth Century The Andalusi House in Granada (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries) . 169
Antonio Orihuela
9. Understanding Architectural Change at the Alhambra: Stratigraphic Analysis of the Western Gallery, Court of the Myrtles . 193
Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas
10. Sixteenth-Century Viceregal Ceramics and the Creation of a Mudéjar Myth in New Spain . 207
María Judith Feliciano

Part V
11. Myth and Modernity: Constructions of al-Andalus Owen Jones and the Alhambra Court at the Crystal Palace .. 225
Kathryn Ferry
12. Visions of al-Andalus in Twentieth-Century Spanish Mosque Architecture .. 245
Jennifer Roberson

Bibliography . 269
Index .

Readership

All those interested in the cultural and material history of medieval and contemporary Iberia, the New World, and the history of Islamic art and architecture, as well as medievalists and Islamicists.

About the author(s)

Glaire D. Anderson, Ph.D. (2005) in History, Theory & Criticism of Architecture, MIT, is Assistant Professor of Islamic Art History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is currently preparing a book on Córdoban Umayyad estates and court culture.
Mariam Rosser-Owen (D.Phil., University of Oxford, 2004) is Curator, Middle East, at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her research interests focus on artistic patronage in the Islamic West, and she is preparing a book on the V&A’s collections of Islamic arts from Spain.

Revisiting al-Andalus brings together a range of recent scholarship on the material culture of Islamic Iberia, highlighting especially the new directions that have developed in the Anglo-American branch of this field since the 1992 catalogue of the influential exhibition, Al-Andalus: the Art of Islamic Spain. Together with examples of recent Spanish scholarship on medieval architecture and urbanism, the volume’s contributors (historians of art and architecture, archaeologists, and architects) explore topics such as the relationship between Andalusi literature and art; architecture, urbanism, and court culture; domestic architecture; archaeology as a tool for analyzing economic and architectural history; cultural transfer between the Iberian Peninsula and the New World; 19th-century “rediscovery” of al-Andalus; and modern architectural and historiographical attempts to construct an Andalusi cultural identity.
Contributors include: Antonio Almagro, Glaire D. Anderson, Rebecca Bridgman, María Judith Feliciano, Kathryn Ferry, Pedro Jiménez, Julio Navarro, Camila Mileto, Antonio Orihuela, Jennifer Roberson, Cynthia Robinson, Mariam Rosser-Owen, Antonio Vallejo Triano, and Fernando Vegas.