Lost Maps of the Caliphs : Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo / Emilie Savage-Smith, Yossef Rapoport.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rapoport, Yossef, author.

Savage-Smith, Emilie, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gharāʼib al-funūn wa-mulaḥ al-ʻuyūn.

Geography, Medieval--Egypt--Maps.

Geography, Medieval.

Astronomy, Medieval--Egypt--Maps.

Astronomy, Medieval.

Islamic astrology--Early works to 1800.

Islamic astrology.

Cosmography--Early works to 1800.

Cosmography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (381 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

About a millennium ago, in Cairo, an unknown author completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features, and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000. Lost Maps of the Caliphs provides the first general overview of The Book of Curiosities and the unique insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought. Opening with an account of the remarkable discovery of the manuscript and its purchase by the Bodleian Library, the authors use The Book of Curiosities to re-evaluate the development of astrology, geography, and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Their account assesses the transmission of Late Antique geography to the Islamic world, unearths the logic behind abstract maritime diagrams, and considers the palaces and walls that dominate medieval Islamic plans of towns and ports. Early astronomical maps and drawings demonstrate the medieval understanding of the structure of the cosmos and illustrate the pervasive assumption that almost any visible celestial event had an effect upon life on Earth. Lost Maps of the Caliphs also reconsiders the history of global communication networks at the turn of the previous millennium. It shows the Fatimid Empire, and its capital Cairo, as a global maritime power, with tentacles spanning from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley and the East African coast. As Lost Maps of the Caliphs makes clear, not only is The Book of Curiosities one of the greatest achievements of medieval mapmaking, it is also a remarkable contribution to the story of Islamic civilization that opens an unexpected window to the medieval Islamic view of the world.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One. A Discovery

Chapter Two. Macrocosm to Microcosm: Reading the Skies and Stars in Fatimid Egypt

Chapter Three. The Rectangular World Map

Chapter Four. The Nile, the Mountain of the Moon, and the White Sand Dunes

Chapter Five. The View from the Sea: Navigation and Representation of Maritime Space

Chapter Six. Ports, Gates, Palaces: Drawing Fatimid Power on the Island-City Maps

Chapter Seven. The Fatimid Mediterranean

Chapter Eight. A Musk Road to China

Chapter Nine. Down the African Coast, from Aden to the Island of the Crocodile

Chapter Ten. The Book of Curiosities and the Islamic Geographical Tradition

Conclusion. Maps, Seas, and the Ismaʿili Mission

Appendix. A Technical Discourse on Star Lore and Astrology

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

ISBN:

9780226553405

022655340X

OCLC:

1065537491