COMUNICACIÓN Y PRENSA

The Fundación El legado andalusí has published Clepsidras y Relojes musulmanes (“Clepsydras and Islamic clocks”) by Antonio Fernández-Puertas, Chair Professor of Art History at the University of Granada. The work deals with these objects from regions of Islam in depth, basing on the work of prominent Muslim scientists, such as al-Khazini, Ridwan or al-Jazari, who have noted down their experiences in this field, influenced by the work of Ancient Greek and Byzantine authors.
To this effect, these clocks and clepsydras (water clocks) were adapted by the Muslims for their liturgical ritual. One of the most remarkable pieces in al-Andalus was the minkan (furniture clock) the Emir Muhammad I had built in Cordoba. In eleventh-century Toledo al-Muradi wrote an interesting treatise in which he presented a whole set of mechanic devices. During the twelfth and thirteenth century, the main Muslim writers of treatises were al-Khazini, Ridwan and al-Jazari. The clocks of Fez and Tlemcen produced during the fourteenth century were perhaps the direct antecedents of the Nasrid clock from the Alhambra described by the Granadine vizier Ibn al-Khatib in 1362.
The Fundación El legado andalusí is launching with this new publication the new book collection called Colección: Ciencia and dedicated to the science in al-Andalus and the Arab-Islamic world.
Antonio Fernández-Puertas is member of the Senior Public Service on Museums and was the Director of the Museo Nacional de Arte Hispano-Musulmán (“National Museum of Hispano-Islamic Art”) in the Alhambra.