Yusuf ibn Urunbugha al-Zaradkash
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Yūsuf ibn Urunbughā (or Aranbughā) al-Zaradkāsh (fl. AH 867 / AD 1462–1463) was a Mamluk siege engineer[1] who wrote a treatise in Arabic on the trebuchet, entitled Kitāb anīq fī al-manājanīq ('An Elegant Book on Trebuchets'), which is "the longest and most profusely illustrated work in any language dealing with the trebuchet".[2] It was addressed to the Mamluk commander-in-chief (atabik) Manglī Bughā al-Shamsī.[3][4] It contains a prologue and a series of lightly labelled illustrations on the construction and operation of different types of trebuchet.[1][5] The illustrations go beyond just trebuchets and include other siege weapons, gunpowder weapons, projectiles and fortresses.[1] In describing an arrow-shooting artillery piece mounted on a stand, Zaradkāsh gives the composition of gunpowder as 10 dirhams of potassium nitrate, 1.125 of sulphur and 2.5 of charcoal.[3]
The Anīq is known from a single manuscript in Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Yazma Eserler Kütüphanesi, Ahmet III Collection, MS 3469/1.[2] There are two copies of the work in the manuscript. A preliminary edition was published by Nabīl Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Aḥmad in 1981.[4] A full edition was published by Iḥsān Hindī in 1985, reproducing the illustrations in black and white.[1]
Editions
[edit]- Ibn Aranbughā Zaradkāsh (1981). Nabīl Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Aḥmad (ed.). al-Anīq fī al-manājanīq. Cairo.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Ibn Aranbughā Zaradkāsh (1985). Iḥsān Hindī [in Arabic] (ed.). al-Anīq fī al-manājanīq. Aleppo.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Daniel A. Bertrand, Building the Medieval Trebuchet, Undergraduate Honors Capstone Project, Utah State University (2019), pp. 14–15 et passim.
- ^ a b Paul E. Chevedden, "Artillery in Late Antiquity: Prelude to the Early Middle Ages", in Ivy A. Corfis and Michael Wolfe (eds.), The Medieval City Under Siege (Boydell, 1995), p. 133 n9.
- ^ a b Ahmad al-Hassan, "Gunpowder Composition for Rockets and Cannon in Arabic Military Treatises in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries", Icon 9 (2003): 18, gives al-Shamsī's term in office as 1367–1372.
- ^ a b Shihab al-Sarraf, "Mamluk Furūsīyah Literature and Its Antecedents", Mamluk Studies Review 8.1 (2004): 184, gives al-Shamsī's date of death as 1432.
- ^ Paul E. Chevedden, Les Eigenbrod, Vernard Foley and Werner Soedel, "The Trebuchet", Scientific American 273.1 (1995): 67.