THE Lemmy community for visual arts. Paintings, sculptures, photography, architecture are all welcome amongst others.
Rules:
Send it to Lock picking lawyer
Send it to McNally and have it done in 10 seconds.
Something this old, I bet even I could get it
Okay, so where can I learn more about how far ahead Arabs and India were during Europe's dark ages? This stuff has been tragically left out of Western history books - they tend to draw a straight line from Ancient Rome to the Italian Renaissance - and I'd love to know more.
You should look up the Golden age of Islam for a primer. Short version is tech and ideas moved between Rome and China over the Middle East via the silk road a lot of knowledge was consolidated in the Byzantine empire. and from there it morphed into the basis of a primitive but understanding of science though continual trade of ideas and goods to be preserved and expanded upon before being rediscovered by Europe much later.
The more you read about that period, the more you want to visit all the cities that are currently completely engulfed in chaos and war.
they tend to draw a straight line from Ancient Rome to the Italian Renaissance
The Roman empire fell in 1453, but went into decline in the two centuries before that due to the black death and the fourth crusade. Yes, Europeans at the time and to this day, like to think of the inhabitants of Byzantium as Greeks, but they themselves thought of themselves as Romans as did their Muslim neighbours.
It's only logical to draw a straight line from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, because they happened around the same time. The one arguably caused the other, with Romans fleeing a declining empire and some settling in Italy. They bought with them many of the ideas, including those they'd gained from Byzantium's contact with the Arab world, that helped bring about the renaissance.
Fun tangent for nerds: IRC the word chapel comes from the late latin capella for cloak. Saint Martin of Tours was a soldier in the Roman army stationed in Gaul. He had a vision, yadayada, cloak became a relic, cut into little bits, people who cared for the relic was called a cappellanu, or chapelain.
How this ties back into Rome: Saint Martin was a very popular saint in the middle-ages, in part because he was very popular with rulers in what is now France, dating back to the Franks. Clovis I, the first king of the Franks, converted to Catholicism and used the legend of Saint Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier, to solidify his support with the Gallo-Roman aristocracy. His father had been a commander under emperor Majorian and both were likely military commanders in the Roman military. So for people at the time, they likely didn't even notice the Western empire had fallen. They were still being ruled by the same people who were often even dressed as Romans. IRC that's why you'll see early Frankish kings wearing a cloak. It's a Roman style cloak and refers back to Saint Martin, the Roman soldier.
Related fun fact: the Thai word for foreigner, Farang, comes from the Persian word for Frank. It travelled all the way throught the silk road, through the Mughal empire, all the way to Thailand.
Other fun factoid: the Arab world used Afranj(from Farang) to refer to the West European latins, primarily when they encountered them during the crusades. IRC there are even very confused Islamic accounts of the time, where some Muslim scholars didn't understand the religious nature of the crusades, and seem to think it was the Western Roman empire invading the east. Basically: "Oh no, the Romans are at it again!" but centuries after Rome has fallen in the west.
Yes, I do think about the Romans quite often.
Thank you for attending my lecture.
Oh, and I think you'll find Frankopan's The Silk Roads interesting:
When discussing the "Fall of he Roman Empire", even historians/archaeologists are generally referencing the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 when Odoacer deposed the last western emperor.
Source: I majored in Near Eastern Classical Archaeology.
You're not wrong about the fall of the Byzantine Empire. And you're not wrong about the fact that they considered themselves Roman (At least at first. The farther into the past the fall of the west fell, it's debateable just how "connected" the average Byzantine felt to it.)
But referring to 1453 as "The Fall of the Roman Empire" is a "well..actually..." level of "technically correct" pedantry that even the professionals don't stoop to.
But referring to 1453 as “The Fall of the Roman Empire” is a “well…actually…” level of “technically correct”
The combination is: 1 2 3 4
That's the same combination as my luggage!
Same combination that's on my luggage.
4.2 billion from 4 dials would require ~256 positions per dial, which these don't appear to have anywhere near that many markings.
It looks to me like each of the four is actually two dials stacked atop one another. And eight 16-position dials is also 4.2 billion.
Oh! No! A 800 year lock with 4.2 billion combos!!!
Almost nominative determinism. !nominativedeterminism@feddit.uk
It's kind of the reverse, the 'al-Asturlabi' is a description saying he makes astrolabes, I've found various sources with slight variations on his name, but 'Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Asturlabi al-Isfahani' seems to be generally accepted and roughly means "Muhammad, son of Hamid, maker of astrolabes, from Isfahani". It's a bit of a mouthful, but the astrolabe bit was grafted on after he started making them.
From Isfahan, Isfahani is the term for someone from Isfahan
If I saw a name like that for an astrolabe inventor in fiction I'd say the author was lazy
https://legacy.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/materials/metal/art/1-1984
Can anyone else find more pictures of it?
cool craftsmanship on the locking mechanism. but are those exposed pins for the main door? if so, it becomes more of a show of piece, than an actual locking box.
Yup appears so based on the other angles in another comment's link! Rookie mistake...
Ah, it's actually 4 double dials. So it's 8 knobs that can be set in 16 positions each. Neat.
al-Asturlabi? Talk about nominative determinism!
Astrolabe maker
named Al-Asturlabi
Fair; I suppose if my parents named me Sinbad I may as well become a sailor.
Need to get this in the hands of the Lockpicking Lawyer.
Connect the red terminal first
new gabecube theme just dropped