Research Catalog

Title

Lost maps of the caliphs : drawing the world in eleventh-century Cairo / Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith.

Author

Rapoport, Yossef, 1968-

Publication

• Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Savage-Smith, Emilie

Description

349 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps; 24 cm

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.

Alternative Title

Drawing the world in eleventh-century Cairo

Subjects

• Astronomy, Medieval
• Geography, Medieval
• Egypt
• Astronomy, Medieval > Egypt > Maps
• Geography, Medieval > Egypt > Maps
• Maps
• Cosmography > Early works to 1800
• Gharāʼib al-funūn wa-mulaḥ al-ʻuyūn
• Islamic astrology > Early works to 1800
• Early works
• TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Cartography

Genre/Form

• Early works.
• Maps.
• Informational works.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

A discovery -- Macrocosm to microcosm: reading the skies and stars in Fatimid Egypt -- The rectangular world map -- The Nile, the Mountain of the Moon, and the white sand dunes -- The view from the sea: navigation and representation of maritime space -- Ports, gates, palaces: drawing Fatimid power on the island-city maps -- The Fatimid Mediterranean -- A musk road to China -- Down the African coast, from Aden to the Island of the Crocodile -- The Book of Curiosities and the Islamic geographical tradition -- Conclusion: maps, seas, and the Isma'ili mission.

Call Number

G93

ISBN

• 9780226540887
• 022654088X

LCCN

• 2018004554
• 40028823112

OCLC

1004267573

Author

Rapoport, Yossef, 1968- author.

Title

Lost maps of the caliphs : drawing the world in eleventh-century Cairo / Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith.

Publisher

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Copyright Date

©2018

Type of Content

text

still image

cartographic image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Savage-Smith, Emilie, author.

Other Standard Identifier

40028823112

Research Call Number

*R-RMRR G93 .R37 2018

JFE 19-3873