Abstract

CIVALLERO, Edgardo. ISSUE 21: THE BOOK OF CURIOSITIES. Rev. Fuent. Cong. [online]. 2020, vol.14, n.65, pp. 92-94. ISSN 1997-4485.

The manuscript "The Book of Curiosities" preserved in the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) is an anonymous compilation that, according to the clues that the unknown author was leaving between its lines, would have been produced in Egypt around late 12th or early 13th century, between 1020 and 1050. The original title of the volume, Kitab ghara'ib al-funun wa-mula al-'uyun, could roughly be translated as "The Book of Curiosities of Sciences and Wonders for the Eyes ". A magnificent series of maps and astronomical diagrams unparalleled among the Greek, Latin and Arabic materials known today is displayed between its pages. This ancient text perpetuates the knowledge collected and organized between the 9th and 11th centuries by Muslim astronomers, scholars, historians and travelers, whose original works are preserved today in a very fragmentary way.

Keywords : Manuscript; The Book of Curiosities; Astronomical maps; Egypt.