The elephant clock in a manuscript by Al-Jazari (1206 AD) from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. [1] The elephant clock was an ancient Islamic invention, consisting of a water-powered clock in the form of an elephant. The various elements of the clock are in the housing on top of the elephant. They were designed to move and make a sound each half hour. The Ibn Battuta Mall is a large shopping mall on the Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai close to Interchange 6 for Jebal Ali Village. ...
Coordinates: Emirate Dubai Government - Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Area [1] - Metro 4,114 km² (1,588. ...
Ibn Ismail Ibn al-Razzaz Al-Jazari (1206 AD) wrote notable books about engineering that are consulted in the history of engineering even today. ...
Islam (Arabic: ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. ...
A water clock or clepsydra is a device for measuring time by letting water regularly flow out of a container usually by a tiny aperture. ...
A wrist watch A clock (from the Latin cloca, bell) is an instrument for measuring time. ...
Genera and Species Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Elephas antiquus †Elephas beyeri †Elephas celebensis †Elephas cypriotes †Elephas ekorensis †Elephas falconeri †Elephas iolensis †Elephas planifrons †Elephas platycephalus †Elephas recki †Stegodon †Mammuthus †Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea...
The timing mechanism is based on a water-filled bucket hidden inside the elephant. In the bucket is a deep bowl floating in the water, but with a small hole in the centre. The bowl takes half an hour to fill through this hole. In the process of sinking, the bowl pulls a string attached to a see-saw mechanism in the tower on top of the elephant. This releases a ball that drops into the mouth of a serpent, causing the serpent to tip forward. At the same time, a system of strings causes a figure in the tower to raise either the left or right hand and the mahout (elephant driver at the front) to hit a drum. This indicates a half or full hour. Next the snake tips back again and the sunken bowl is raised out of the water. The cycle then repeats. [2] Serpent is a word of Latin origin (serpens, serpentis) which is ultimately derived from the Sanskrit term serp, that is normally substituted for snake in a specifically mythic or religious context, in order to distinguish such creatures from the field of biology. ...
A mahout is a person who drives an elephant. ...
A modern full-size working reproduction can be found as a centrepiece in the Ibn Battuta Mall, a shopping mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Ibn Battuta Mall is a large shopping mall on the Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai close to Interchange 6 for Jebal Ali Village. ...
McArthur Glen Designer Outlet, Swindon, England, a shopping mall built within a disused railway engine works. ...
Coordinates: Emirate Dubai Government - Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Area [1] - Metro 4,114 km² (1,588. ...
See also
A water clock or clepsydra is a device for measuring time by letting water regularly flow out of a container usually by a tiny aperture. ...
A significant number of inventions were produced in the Muslim world, many of them with direct implications for Fiqh related issues. ...
References - ^ Ibn al-Razzaz Al-Jazari (ed. 1974), The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. Translated and annotated by Donald Routledge Hill, Dordrecht/D. Reidel.
- ^ Robinson, Andrew, The Story of Measurement: From Cubits to Megabytes, Thames & Hudson, 2007. To appear [1].
Donald Routledge Hill (1922–1994) was an engineer and historian of science. ...
W. Andrew Robinson (born 1957) is a British author and newspaper editor. ...
Thames & Hudson (also Thames and Hudson and sometimes T&H for brevity) are a publisher, especially of art and illustrated books, founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. ...
External links - Article including a photograph of the Ibn Battuta Mall elephant clock.
- Information from the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
- Saudi Aramco World: The Third Dimension by Richard Covington, including Dr Fuat Sezgin, his museum of Arabic–Islamic science in Frankfurt, and in particular a model of the elephant clock.
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