Damascus Gallery

Peacock-shaped Hand Washing Device (recto); Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso), 1315

Peacock-shaped Hand Washing Device (recto); Text Page, Arabic Prose (verso), 1315. This leaf from a 1315 Syrian copy of Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari's The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices , written in 1206, depicts a peacock basin automaton for ritual hand washing. There are 15 surviving manuscript copies of al-Jazari's work, ranging from the early 13th to the late 19th century. An engineer from upper Mesopotamia, al-Jazari was in the service of King Nasri al-Din when he completed his masterwork, an anthology of automated devices including clocks, trick vessels for drinking sessions, devices for washing, fountains, water-raising machines, and measuring instruments. His designs clearly illustrate that automata were not innovations from Western Europe, but they stemmed from a tradition known in the ancient, Islamic, and Byzantine worlds. We do not know with certainty that al-Jazari's device was ever actually constructed

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Peacock-shaped Hand Washing Device: Illustration from The Book of Knowledge...(recto), 1315

Peacock-shaped Hand Washing Device: Illustration from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Automata) of Inb al-Razza al-Jazari (recto), 1315. The Arabic title of this work is Kitab fi marifat al-hiyal al handasiyya (The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices). According to the description of the device illustrated here, the peacock is filled with water: as it flows into the vessel below, it raises a float that opens a door in the section above, causing the little figure to move forward offering soap; as more water flows, a second door will open and another figure will move forward offering a towel. Finally, the dirty water is drawn off by means of a spigot

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Damascus, Syria, late 19th century. Artist: John L Stoddard

Damascus, Syria, late 19th century. Photograph from Portfolio of Photographs, of Famous Scenes, Cities and Paintings by John L Stoddard, published by the Werner Company, (Chicago, c1899)

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