Astrolabe, Indo-Persian, 17th Century

Inventory Number:

33411

Object Type:

Object

Place Created:

India Asia

Subject Classification(s):

Astrolabes

Accession Number:

1940-6/part

Brief Description:

This astrolabe was probably intended for teaching rather than to be used for personal purposes. This is revealed by the inclusion of a latitude plate for 90 degrees - the North Pole. It would have been striking and memorable for a student of astronomy to have seen from such a plate, with its zenith coinciding with the pole and its horizon with the equator, that for half the year when rotating the rete through 24 hours the sun never sets and for half it never rises. This educational purpose is suggested also by the inclusion of a composite plate, for latitudes 0, 48 and 72 degrees, and by the great deal of information squeezed on to the plates in general.

Primary Inscriptions:

"Work of the least of servants, Muhammad Muqim ibn `Isa ibn Allah-dad Humayun's astrolabist of Lahore". Engraved on the back, in the lower right-hand quadrant, along right edge of shadow square.

Provenance:

Presented by A.E. Gunther in 1986. The Gunther Collection, initially deposited on loan in 1940 by the executors of R. T. Gunther (1869-1940), the Museum's founding Curator, was a very miscellaneous collection, and contained four astrolabes (one of them added later). Unfortunately Gunther does not record how he acquired this astrolabe. It is not included in his book The Astrolabes of the World (1932). [Source: 'A Universal Geometry: the Astrolabe East and West'; Museum of the History of Science cataloguing project supported by the Designation Challenge Fund of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, completed 2005, See https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/astrolabe/]

Collection Group:

Gunther Collection

Material(s):

copper alloy

Dimensions: