Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction, and Use by Emilie Savage-Smith

Abstract

670 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE enon analogous to the new history of science movement in Latin America) gives great hope for an explosive expansion of our knowl­ edge of this area. Thomas F. Glick Dr. Glick is the author of Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages and numerous essays on the transmission of techniques from the Islamic to the Hispanic worlds. Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction, and Use. By Emilie Savage-Smith. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985. Pp. ix + 354; illustrations, notes, bibliography, indexes. Paper. This comprehensive study was initiated when Emilie Savage-Smith was asked to read the Arabic inscriptions on a globe acquired by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of History and Technol­ ogy (now National Museum of American History). Becoming in­ trigued with the globe, she undertook a more detailed survey of it. This led to a ten-year project of research into Islamicate globes. (“Is­ lamicate” as opposed to “Islamic” is defined by the author on page vi: . . Islamicate can be used to refer to objects or cultural features that are not related directly to the religion but are often based upon traditions taken over from other cultures and nurtured and developed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.”) She sought out globes in public and private collections in America, England, France, Egypt, and other countries. Each globe was examined, photographed, and documented. The results of this research are presented here in three ways. First, there is a descriptive catalog in which the globes are divided into three major categories. For each of the 126 globes (with a further six in an addendum), the location, date, and maker’s name are given, with occasional omissions when the data were not available. The markings and construction are described briefly, and the entry ends with cita­ tions from modern writers. Second, tables of the basic characteristics of the globes are provided. Third, the major Arabic inscriptions on the globes are given. If this detailed and scrupulous cataloging of all the known Islamicate globes were the only content of the book, it would still have provided us with a valuable addition to the literature on astronomical instruments; but the work has further merits. The development of the techniques of globe making from GrecoRoman into Islamic times is fully discussed. The contributions of various astronomers to the different features that may appear on celestial globes are documented, thus placing Islamicate globes clearly in their historical context. Considerable attention is paid to the con­ struction of globes. The material could be wood, papier-mache, or metal. The last was the most common, usually an alloy of copper and lead with small amounts of zinc and tin. They were made by three TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 671 methods. In the first, two hollow hemispheres were cast, then soldered together with an internal backing ring. Seamless globes were made either by cire-perdu casting or by hammering the sheet metal around a series of spherical anvils. The engraving of the various markings is also described in detail. These included constellations, stars, ecliptic circle, equator, latitude circle, and so on. In order to make full use of a globe, it was necessary to mount it with a meridian and a horizon ring, set to the latitude of the observer. Globes could be used for didactic purposes in much the same way as armillary spheres, but they were also used by astronomers and astrologers as analog instruments for deriving astronomical data such as the risings and settings of the sun and the stars, altitudes of those bodies at given times, and so forth. Somewhat analogous procedures were used with the astrolabe. In­ deed, some useful comparisons are made between globes and astro­ labes—both plane and spherical. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters are concerned mainly with a detailed description of the Smithsonian globe. Chapter 3 discusses the attribution of the globe from its technical and astronomical features, while chapter 4, contributed by art historian Andrea P. A. Belloli, ex­ amines the globe as an art-historical document. Both approaches yield the specific attribution to a certain Qa’ im Muhammad, who worked in Lahore in the early...