Al-Jazari and the elephant clock
A medieval engineer describes robots, pumps and an elephant clock
Al-Jazari, engineer to the Artuqid court, wrote a book on some fifty devices, from water pumps to automaton musicians. The most famous is a water clock shaped like an elephant whose mechanical driver struck a drum every half hour.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 13th century
Did you know
Al-Jazari's elephant clock put a whole world into one machine: Greek waterworks, an Indian elephant, Chinese dragons, an Egyptian phoenix and the driver's Islamic turban. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1188 Magdeburg rights — 18 years earlier
- 1202 Fibonacci's Liber Abaci — 4 years earlier
- 1204 Sack of Constantinople — 2 years earlier
- 1215 Magna Carta — 9 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1185 Prince Igor's campaign — 21 years earlier
- 1223 Battle of the Kalka River — 17 years later
Asia
- 1192–1333 First shogunate in Japan — 14 years earlier
- 1192 Second Battle of Tarain — 14 years earlier
- 1206 Temüjin proclaimed Genghis Khan — same year
- 1206 Founding of the Delhi Sultanate — same year
- 1219 The Mongols invade Khwarazm — 13 years later
Alive at the time
- Genghis Khan (aged 44)
- Vsevolod the Big Nest (aged 52)
- Philip II Augustus (aged 41)
- John Lackland (aged 40)
- Francis of Assisi (aged 24)
- Frederick II (aged 12)
- Jayavarman VII (aged 84)
- Tamar of Georgia (aged 40)
- Fibonacci (aged 36)
- Otto IV (aged 31)