The Citadel of Cairo

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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> Books> Book Series> The Citadel of Cairo

The Citadel of Cairo

A New Interpretation of Royal Mamluk Architecture

Nasser O. Rabbat

Books

Available
Publication year: 1995


Series:	Islamic History and Civilization, 14
ISBN-13 (i)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been changed from 10 to 13 digits on 1 January 2007:	978 90 04 10124 1
ISBN-10:	90 04 10124 1

Cover:	Cloth with dustjacket
Number of pages:	xxii, 339 pp. 48 illus.

List price:	€ 139.00 / US$ 206.00

Reviews

'Far more than just a chronology of architectural remains, Rabbat's book is an exploration into the very fabric of Mamluk culture, written in the best historicist tradition.'
Yasser Tabbaa, ARS Orientalis, 1996.
'The great merit of this book is its approach, which always connects the architecture with its social and historical setting, seeking the function it was created to fulfill and the circumstances that accompanied its evolution, making it intelligible and interesting.'
Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Mamlūk Studies Review, 1997.
'...this book is a significant contribution to the field of military architecture and more generally to our understanding of the Mamluks.'
Nelly Hanna, MESA Bulletin, 1996.
'The meticulous and exhaustive scholarship shows that the author has read and examined everything and forgotten nothing. Specialists in Mamluk history will now be able to localize activities mentioned in their sources, and architectural historians will profit from learned and exhaustive disquisitions on architecture and architectural vocabulary during the early Mamluk period.'
Jonathan M. Bloom, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1997.
This book does more than meticulously reconstruct an impressive monument over the centuries of its development. It restores a life a bygone age through the evocation of its architectural heritage.
Carl F. Petry, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 1998.

Readership

All those interested in Islamic art and architecture, medieval Islamic history, Mamluk history, urban history, Islamic archaeology, Arabic philology and epigraphy.

About the author(s)

Nasser O. Rabbat, Ph.D. (1991) in Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is Associate Professor of the History of Architecture at MIT. He has published extensively on early and medieval Islamic architecture, institutions, and urbanism. His dissertation, upon which this book is based, received the 1991 Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award.

This architectural history of the Citadel of Cairo uses indices from maps, photographs, plans of hitherto unstudied structures, and a large array of historical documents to chronologically reconstruct the Citadel's development from its foundation by Salah al-Din until it reached its most monumental form in the middle of the fourteenth century.
The study analyzes the influence of Mamluk socio-political hierarchy on the conceptualization of the Citadel's spaces and forms; assesses its impact on medieval Cairo; proposes a new interpretation for the development of Mamluk royal architecture; and presents new definitions for a number of medieval architectural terms.
By weaving the history of the Citadel together with the history of Cairo and the Mamluk system, this book is relevant to historians of architecture and urbanism and medieval historians.

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