Al-Jazari documented fifty mechanical inventions in six different categories (along with construction drawings) in The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (??????? ?????? ?????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??? ???????? ????????? al-Jami Bain al-Ilm Wal-Amal al-Nafi Fi Sinat’at al-Hiyal in Arabic), published in 1206. These included the crank mechanism, connecting rod, programmable automaton, humanoid robot, reciprocating piston engine, suction pipe, suction pump, double-action pump, valve, combination lock, cam, camshaft, segmental gear, the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and especially the crankshaft, which is considered the most important mechanical invention in history after the wheel. Other devices and methods he first described include hand washing devices (including Wudu machines), accurate calibration of orifices, lamination of timber to reduce warping, static balancing of wheels, use of paper models to establish a design, and casting of metals in closed mould boxes with green sand. He also described the most sophisticated water-raising machines and water clocks of his time (one of his famous clocks was reconstructed successfully at the London Science Museum in 1976).
Most of what’s about is already rounded up at Da Vinci Automata’s Al-Jazari tag page &mdash including a working replica of al-Jazari’s elephant clock in the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai (picture).
Most recent al-Jazari news: there’s what promises to be a most interesting presentation on Jazari’s work at the University of Minnesota this coming week: “Simulations of Time and Life in al-Jazari’s Automata: Islamic Symbolism, Teleological Mechanisms, and Ontological Difference”: a talk with Ayhan Aytes.
Ayhan Aytes’s research focuses on a series of examples from al-Jazari’s Book of Ingenious Mechanical Devices written in 1206. By using media archeology, his study addresses the symbolic depiction of the concept of time such as in al-Jazari’s Elephant Clock, as it simulates a unique mechanistic conception of the universe.
I’m not entirely sure what “media archaeology” might mean in this context, but I’m hoping there will be some documentation of this on the internets. Aytes’ site is here, and as it turns out, he has some other interesting, erm, well, interests.