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Celestial Mapping

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  • 2 Celestial Mapping


    The beginning of Islamic celestial mapping can be seenin the central Islamic lands of greater Syria and Iraq,where indigenous Bedouin ideas played a role. Celestialmapping, like many other aspects of Islamic secular cul-ture, drew in its early days upon the techniques and con-cepts current (though often in a languishing state) in theRoman, Byzantine, and Persian provinces that were itsimmediate neighbors and over which the emergingIslamic state soon gained dominion. From both writtendocuments and surviving artifacts we can trace, at leastpartially, a transmigration of ideas and techniques bothwest and east within the rapidly expanding IslamicempIre.

    The ideas and techniques associated with celestial map-ping were nurtured by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.Though stimulated by the practical needs of religiousritual, their development tended to be unaffected bybelief or dogma, except where celestial mapping intrudedupon cosmological visualization of the universe. Politicaland economic changes within an area, as well as aestheticfashion, had substantial effects on celestial mapping, ason most other aspects of society, since the training andpatronage of artisans reflected shifting circumstances.Islam itself provided a particularly encouraging environ-ment for those interested in mapping the heavens. A num-ber of verses in the Qur)an advocate the use of stars, sun,and moon for reckoning and navigation, as in Qur)an6:97: "It is He who has appointed for you the stars, thatyou might be guided by them in the darkness of the landand sea." The employment of a lunar calendar and theneed to convert neighboring calendrical systems into theirown lunar one, which began with the Hijrah of Mubam-mad in A.D. 622, required knowledge of basic celestialphenomena. Even more conducive to promoting anunderstanding of the skies was the need to calculateprayer times, for these were based on unequal or seasonalhours, in which the time between sunrise and sunset wasdivided into twelve equal parts that changed every day.

    Beginning in the seventeenth century we can observea few instances when early modern European ideas oncelestial mapping are introduced into the Islamic world.Yet in spite of these points of contact, the concepts andtechniques of Islamic celestial mapping remained essen-

    tially medieval well into the nineteenth century, partic-ularly in Turkey, Persia, and Mughal India. The reasonhas not been adequately explored by social historians.


    An eighth-century palace in the Syrian Desert providesthe earliest evidence of celestial mapping in Islamic cul-ture. Built possibly between 92 and 97 (711-15), thisprovincial palace, known as Qu~ayr cAmrah, was con-structed in a remote area about fifty kilometers east ofthe north end of the Dead Sea, probably by the Umayyadcaliph al-WalId I, who ruled from 86-96/705-15.1

    The Syriac-speaking community in the region appearsto have had considerable interest in stereographic pro-jection of the skies, as witnessed by the activities of Sev-erns Sebokht (d. A.D. 666-67). Severus Sebokht was thebishop of Qinnasrln, an ancient town that held an impor-tant position in the defense system of Syrian fortressesfrom Antioch to the Euphrates River and was about aday's journey from Aleppo. He not only wrote in Syriaca treatise on constellations, but he composed, also inSyriac, a treatise on the astrolabe compiled from Greeksources.2

    1. Later dates for the building of the palace, ranging from A.D. 723to A.D. 742, have also been suggested, primarily based on an inscriptionreferring to an emir or a prince rather than a caliph. It was possiblybuilt by the rather libertine al-Walid II, who lived in the area of Qu~ayrcAmrah before his brief rule in A.D. 743-44; see Richard Ettinghausen,Arab Painting ([Geneva]: Editions d'Art Albert Skira, 1962; New York:Rizzoli, 1977), 33, and Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, The Artand Architecture of Islam: 650-1250 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1987), 63.

    2. F. Nau, "Le traite sur les 'constellations' ecrit, en 661, par SevereSebokt eveque de Qennesrin," Revue de ['Orient Chretien 27 (1929/30): 327-38; this treatise displays a familiarity with both Ptolemy andAratus. Both the Syriac text and a French translation of the astrolabetreatise are given by F. Nau, "Le traite sur l'astrolabe plan de SevereSabokt, ccrit au VIle siecle d'apres des sources grecques, et public pourla premiere fois d'apres un ms. de Berlin," Journal Asiatique, 9th ser.,13 (1899): 56-101 and 238-303. The French translation was renderedinto English, with the introduction of some errors, and printed in RobertT. Gunther, The Astrolabes of the World, vol. 1, The Eastern Astrolabes(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932),82-103. A new critical editionwith German translation is being prepared by E. Reich of Munich.


  • Celestial Mapping

    FIG. 2.1. THE REMAINS OF THE VAULT OF THE HEAV-ENS. Painted on a domed ceiling in the provincial palace ofQu~ayt 'Amtah built in the early eighth century A.D., the designis that which would be seen looking down on a globe.Size of the original: not known. Photograph courtesy of OlegGrabar.

    The palace of Qu~ayr 'Amrah contains rooms coveredwith closely packed paintings, frescoes, and mosaics insuch a chaotic mixture of themes that an observer of therecently cleaned and restored palace can only concludethat it was built as a private and personal art gallery.3Among the rooms is a bath consisting of three rooms:one tunnel vaulted, one cross vaulted, and the third cov-ered by a dome. The dome of this calidarium was dec-orated to resemble the vault of the heavens, reflecting awell-established tradition of decorating cupolas withheavenly images-a custom that can be traced back tothe early days of the Roman Empire. This domed ceilingat Qu~ayr 'Amrah is the oldest preserved astronomicaldome of heaven (fig. 2.1).4

    The view of the skies as represented by the painter ofthis fresco is not as it would appear to an observer onearth, for it displays a larger portion of the sky than couldbe seen at anyone time from one location. The northernand zodiacal constellations recognized in antiquity arerepresented, along with a number of the southern ones,while the northern celestial pole is indicated directlyoverhead. The sequence and positioning of the constel-lations are painted as you would see them when lookingdown on a celestial globe rather than up into the sky.

    It is evident from the general design that the frescopainter was copying onto the domed ceiling a type of


    planispheric map of the heavens that can be found in anumber of Latin and Byzantine manuscripts.s Unfortu-nately, all copies of these planispheric maps preservedtoday were drawn after the palace of Qu~ayr 'Amrah wasconstructed. They are, however, clearly copies of muchearlier Western planispheric maps.

    One such map from a fifteenth-century Greek manu-script is illustrated in figure 2.2, while figure 2.3 dem-onstrates the method of polar stereographic projectionused in producing the map. The map displays the heavensfrom the north equatorial pole to about 35 south of theequator. The innermost circle represents an ever-visiblecircle, marking out the area of the sky that was neverseen to set for a latitude of about 36 north, roughlythat of Rhodes. Proceeding ourward, the next three con-centric circles represent the Tropic of Cancer, the celes-tial equator, and the Tropic of Capricorn, with the out-side circle delimiting an area approximately 10 south ofthe Tropic of Capricorn. The equinoctial and solstitialcolures are indicated by straight lines at right angles toone another. In an eccentric broad band, the zodiacalconstellations are placed in a counterclockwise sequence,in keeping with this diagram's being a polar stereographicprojection of a celestial globe rather than a projectionof the skies as seen from earth.

    Comparing this Byzantine planispheric map with theQu~ayr (Amrah dome in figure 2.1 will immediately estab-lish the similarity. Though the fresco in the Syrian domehas been damaged over the years, it is evident that it toorepresents a stereographic projection from the southecliptic pole of a celestial globe, showing the skies toabout 35 south declination. The iconography of mostof the constellations is classical or early medieval (West-

    3. See Ettinghausen and Grabar, Art and Architecture, 59-65 (note1).

    4. Fritz Saxl, "The Zodiac of Qu~ayr 'Amra," trans. Ruth Wind, inEarly Muslim Architecture, vol. 1, Umayyads, A.D. 622-750, byK. A. C. Creswell, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pt. 2, 424-31 and pis. 75a-d and 76a-b; Martin Almagro et aI., Qusayr 'Amra:Residencia y banos omeyas en eI desierto deJordania (Madrid: InstitutoHispano-Arabe de Cultura, 1975), esp. pI. XLVIII. For the tradition ofdecorating cupolas with heavenly and astronomical images, see KarlLehmann, "The Dome of Heaven," Art Bulletin 27 (1945): 1-27.

    5. Arthur Beer, in his astronomical interpretation of the fresco, over-looks its relation to the early medieval planispheric maps; Arthur Beer,"The Astronomical Significance of the Zodiac of Qu~yr 'Amra," inEarly Muslim Architecture, vol. 1, Umayyads, A.D. 622-750, byK. A. C. Creswell, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pt. 2, 432-40. That the model the painter used was a planispheric map of theheavens produced by stereographic projection was first suggested byFrancis R. Maddison, Hugo Helt and the Rojas Astrolabe Projection,Agrupamento de Estudos de Carrografia Antiga, Sec\3o de Coimbra,vol. 12 (Coimbra: Junta de Investiga\oes do Ultramar, 1966), 8 n. 9.Comparing the dome with maps made by the projection of a globerather than of the skies resolves most of the problems arising in theinterpretation of the fresco. See also Emilie Savage-Smith, IslamicateCelestial Globes: Their History, Constr

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