transmission of technical knowledge.

Hill, in his essay "Andalusian Technology" takes as usual

a slightly more ecumenical view of that question, probably because it is not easy to find many

Cordovan documents. Al-Muradi's manuscript is the only known Arabic manuscript from the

court of Alfonso X, a famed patron of the astrological sciences: Many of the documents could

have been destroyed during the Reconquista. Both Juan Vernet and Donald Hill struggle to

synopsize the contents of this unmanageable text. The image quality however does improve as

the manuscript progresses.

Juan Vernet also says that the manuscript is notable for its independence from al-Jazari

but in some cases bears uncanny similitude, for example figure 18 depicting a falconer with

falcon. (compare Figs 2.19 and 2.20) From the drawings available, this comparison is hard to

make and apart from the shared occurrence of birds, and the long weights dangling, it is hard

to make out. Notwithstanding certain "quotations" appearing in al-Jazari (who was not

schooled in a vacuum in any event, and who was aware of at least the Banu Musa's work),

Vernet suggests that inasmuch as the current state of the manuscript could indicate, there is

less connection between this manuscript and other Arabic works than that of the work of Philo

of Byzantium. Hill notes that al-Muradi's figures are much more "rugged" than the

comparatively delicate structures of the Banu Musa and al-Jazari.

Ultimately, scholars do not know what to make of al-Muradi's manuscript. There are

important and perhaps insular innovations in The Book of Secrets such as the use of mercury for

balance and epicyclic gears."' (Fig 2.21) But as much as the dissemination of copies of the

other manuscripts help achieve a master narrative of their contents, this work is unyielding in

information. There has not yet been a thorough analysis of the court of Alfonso X with respect

145 gears inside of gears

to craft at the time, 146 since the craftsmanship of al-Jazari and the Banu Musa is so crucial to

understanding their unique position in the sciences--although arguably, it too is equally

under-theorized. Looked at from the historian's point of view, it is difficult to imagine what

more can be revealed. From the technologist's standpoint, there are still technical feats to be

discovered in the book. For all intents and purposes, it is almost impossible to reconstruct, or

even look at, The Book of Secrets and emerge with more answers than questions.

A comprehensive, perhaps eclectic, variety of interpretations of Islamic automata

manuscripts have been presented here, but they all share one theme, which is that hiyal

reconstruction has sought to focus on functionality, the only limits to which are the

imagination, a historically "Western" denotation of useful technology, and the manuscript

material itself. This reconstruction, for all it relies on multiple manuscripts to achieve a master

narrative of device, however, also transcends the manuscript. As function was made to

resemble use, which must be proven valuable, an idiom of abstract processes came to

constitute the way in which the Islamic automata manuscript was integrated into the canon of

progress. If the Islamic automaton remains only in manuscript form (with the exceptions of a

few material remains of monumental clocks) scholars must work though them-- but to prove

their excellence they must transcend them.

In his article on the social function of automata sculpture, T. M. P. Duggan has matched

George Saliba's pejorative remarks on early art historical scholarship with an uncanny

adjustment: "It is regrettable that the moving statues...have to date received far greater

attention as examples of technology and as elements of the history of the science of mechanics

than as the great and wonderful works of sculpture that they undoubtedly were." 147 Automata

146 Juan Vernet, La culturahispanodrabeen Orientey Occidente (Barcelona: Ariel, 1978) gives a cultural outline and
many mathematical proofs, but does not offer much in the way of craft practices. Little of Vernet's work has been
translated to English: this is a problem for the field of history of technology perhaps, owing to a lessened
emphasis on "cultural history."
147 Duggan op. cit. p. 231
scholarship so far has run the gamut from painting to technological manual, but there is

something inside it; the automata can indeed be constructed, whether by the principles
extracted, or by other, completely 21st century, constructive techniques. Judging from the

discontent with each other's disciplinary takes, no one is satisfied with how the automata

manuscript gets treated.