Introduction
This is a drinking game for the effervescent parties in Diyarbakır Palace as we met in The automaton who drinks the king’s leaving and A boat placed on a pool during a drinking party (in Hebrew).
The Arbiter is a complicated automaton (a self-operating machine) which includes: A slave (جارِية) pouring wine to a goblet in the lower level. Above her, on a balcony, there are four slave girls who play music on a flute, tambourine and a lute. Above them, there is a half-naked male dancer in a niche, and on top of the dome, there is a horse rider carrying a lance. During the party, the musicians play their instruments, the dancer dances (I swear!) and the horse and the rider rotate slowly. When commotion stops the slave girl tilt the bottle and pours wine to the goblet. A servant (a living person) takes the goblet and serve it to the participant the spear points to his direction. The process repeats itself twenty times, almost seven hours in total. At that time the black doors behind the dancer open and a man emerges out of the door, his hands are in the air, signaling that celebration is over and there is no more wine. Al-Jazari calms the worried reader, saying that the head of the assembly can choose to refill the reservoir. The wild parties in Diyarbakir can raise a lot of questions about the crazy amounts of wine, the half-naked dancer, and more. Maybe I will write about all this in the future. I want to focus on clothes, did observer of the automaton in the 12th century knew she was a slave by her dress? What can we learn from the text and the illustrations about clothing in the Artuqid palace?
The Arbiter for a drinking session. Topkapi manuscript, 1206.
How does it work?
The technical explanation, as always, will be colored in blue, so anyone who is not interested in floats, Tipping buckets or camshaft can skip those bits. The illustration below is my modification of the drawing from the book; it will help us to follow the mechanism:
Drawing of the mechanism
In the beginning, a servant lifts the dome (1) and fill the reservoir (2) with filtered wine. At the bottom of the reservoir, there is a thin pipe, so wine is dripping to the tipping bucket(3). I wrote about tipping buckets before, for example in the fountain of the two tipping buckets (in Hebrew). In the front view, you can see the tipping bucket in action. After twenty minutes the bucket is full of wine, and it becomes overbalanced, and tips down, emptying itself on the scoop wheel (4) which turns the adjacent teeth wheel (5) which turns the 900 teeth wheel(6) which is connected to the rider axle(more clearly seen from the side). This makes the rider rotates, and the “lucky” participant that the spear is pointing in his direction will get to drink the goblet. I used quotation for “lucky” because the goblet contains a liter of wine, more than an entire bottle! I don’t know what the alcohol content in the 12th century was, but it seems like a sure way to get drunk with a severe hangover. I do not want to think about someone who was lucky enough to win two goblets during the seven hours of the party. The wine from the scoop wheel is collected and falls on the second scoop wheel(7). The rotating wheel rotates the axle and the pegs(8)connected to it, hitting the levers connected to the musician’s arms. This causes the up and down movement, simulating the drummer bit and the playing of the lute. The rods, an early version of camshaft transform the circular motion into linear motion were the rods pattern creates different drumming bit and lute music. The wine flow from the 2nd scoop wheel to the air tank, pushing air in a narrow pipe with a whistle at the end(9). This produces the sound of the flute player. Finally, the wine goes down in a hidden tube (10) through the slave body and fills the bottle. The latter is on an axle, and the weight will cause it to tilt and fill the goblet. For clarity, I skipped two mechanisms. Readers who love to ponder on this kind of gadgets can try to decipher the remaining components and questions will be, as always, appreciated.
Fashion and clothing in the “Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.”
The choices of clothing by Muslims reflect their religious and cultural world. We call the veil worn by some Muslim women to cover their hair- hijab (Arabic: حجاب). In the Qur’an and other classical Arabic texts, the term was used to denote a partition, a curtain and it is a generic term for modest attire. During the Hajj (حَجّ), the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam, the men wear a white outfit that was not touched by a needle or thread (how is that even possible?). What (if anything) can we learn about life in the 12th century in Diyarbakır by looking at the illustration and the few direct references of al-Jazari to clothing details?
Five slaves from the “Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices” Topkapi manuscript,1206
In the top left illustration, we can see a young black slave (غلام) truncates the candle wick from The candle clock of the swordsman (Hebrew). No explicit description of him in the book but his attire is the simplest, in comparison to all the other slaves and includes a short red dress with stripes on the sleeves. The sleeves’ stripes appear in almost every dress of slaves or free men. I don’t know if this was the fashion in Diyarbakır or the stripes had a meaning or use? If a knowledgeable reader can enlight me, I would love to learn.
The slave girl pouring wine at the center is from the automaton in the present post. She wears a blue dress or gown with decorations that cover her from neck to ankles. She also has two brown stripes on her sleeves. The garment doesn’t look “cheap” or “service uniform” Her black hair can be seen under the cover. Although her dress could have been worn by devout Muslim today her head cover is not acceptable by contemporary moderate standards (hijab) and certainly not by more religious Muslims demanding a niqāb or chador.
We met the slave washing the king’s hands here (in Hebrew). The illustration, in this case, is large and rich with details. The blue dress is very similar, if not identical, to dress of the slave girl. It is particularly interesting. Muslim men are forbidden(حَرَام ḥarām) to wear silk clothes or gold jewelry. This is not from the Quran but a later story told by Ali Ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad cousin and the fourth Caliph accepted by both Sunni and Shia. The restriction is very specific but interpreted as an echo of the biblical verse:
“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.”
(Deuteronomy 22:5 King James Version)
It is possible that his red jacket without sleeves is enough to distinguish between them? He is also wearing a small red hat quite similar to the fez (more correctly ṭarbūsh). It is interesting to note because the ṭarbūsh is usually attributed to the period of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) when it was introduced as part of the Ottoman Empire judges and spread to clerical circles and the educated elite.
The next slave, to the left and below, is from the automaton of a standing slave holding a Fish and A Goblet. In this case, al-Jazari himself provides a relatively detailed description of the dress:
” He is a standing slave, ten years old in appearance, dressed in a short jacket (farajiya) with a robe(qaba) underneath it, and a cap (qalansuwa) on his head.”
The qaba (قابا, I hope I spelled right?) is a type of a robe with sleeves, at mid-calf –between the knee and ankle that has a diagonal fastening of one side over the other. The “Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization” claimes that in Abbasid times qaba belonged to the military? According to the illustrations in the book, the qaba was widely used among slaves and free men. The hat (qalansuwa = قلنسوة) is written like the Arabic city in the center of Israel; I don’t know if this is the origin of the city name. This hat was quite popular, and Harun al-Rashid was wearing this hat in his nocturnal wanderings through Baghdad in disguise. Unlike the qaba which repeats itself in many illustrations, there is quite a selection of headdress. For example, the slave girl who emerges from a cupboard holding a glass of wine is covered with a colorful scarf with a picturesque ribbon. Quite similar to today hijab. She is also wearing loose red trousers under the qaba. This combination can be found both in the book and outside.
Eight “free” people (in the sense of not slaves) from the “Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices” Topkapi manuscript,1206.
The top left illustration is the scribe from the elephant water clock. There are three scribes in the book, all three wear green qabas with brown stripes on the sleeves and wear pale blue turbans. I couldn’t find any evidence of “professional clothing” of scribes. You should also note that the scribe has a beard. Allowing the beard to grow (لحية) and trimming the mustache is mandatory in Sunni Islam and is considered to be Fitrah (فطرة) or the state of purity and innocence we are all born with including the natural tendency to distinguish between good and evil and to believe in the existence of Allah. As none of the slaves are bearded, they probably weren’t Muslims.
The two Sheikhs are part of the automaton in Category II dedicated to vessels and figures suitable for drink sessions. Al-Jazari did not write anything about the Sheikhs, but Sheikh (( شيخ is a title given to the leader of the Bedouin or Arab tribes. The meaning of the name in Arabic is old, although the Sheikh is not necessarily old. They are also dressed in qaba and turbans. I don’t see in the illustration a difference between the of Sheik’s qaba and the slaves’ qaba. It is quite possible that there were large differences in the quality of the cloth or decoration which are not captured in the illustrations. However, the turban characterizes only the free people. Before anything else, the turban was practical in protecting the eyes from the sand and providing the face protection from the sun. On top of this, the turban (عمامة, pronounced amama) was part of Muslim’s traditional attire and their identity. The turbans were a source of pride and a symbol of religious affiliation. Taking a man’s turban was considered a humiliating act, touching someone’s turban was perceived as an insult. It explains well why none of the slaves wear a turban.
The last picture below is from the musical boat(Hebrew). This is the King and his boon companion ( نديم =Nadim) I wrote about it here (Hebrew). Everyone is wearing a qaba, including the King himself. His blood-red qaba has gold trim. On top of the decorations, everybody has, he has additional decorations of the collar, the cufflinks and the fringes of the qaba as well as a golden belt. Red is not necessarily Royal, another member of the party is wearing red, though with fewer decorations.
I’m pretty sure al-Jazari was very surprised from this post, and it didn’t occur to him that the illustrations he prepared to improve the understanding of his machines, and are truly groundbreaking, would become a fashion guide for 12th century Diyarbakir. However eight hundred and twelve years later this is the only window that would allow me to peep into the Palace in Diyarbakır. At least for me, this was an interesting journey.