Ibn Al Jazari

Ibn al-Jazari (al-Jazarī, 1136–1206) was the master engineer of the Artuqid court at Amid (Diyarbakır). In 1206 he finished The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-ḥiyal al-handasiyya): fifty machines – water-raising machines, water clocks, automata and fountains – and he wrote down only the ones he had built himself.

This channel rebuilds those machines in animated 3D, straight from his own text and the original manuscript drawings. Watch the gears turn, see each part named with the letters he gave it, and find out how a 12th-century engineer solved problems we still solve with the same mechanisms today.

Medieval engineering · history of technology · gears and mechanisms · science of the Islamic Golden Age · al-Jazari's inventions explained.

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Explore the interactive 3D models, original manuscript drawings and full write-ups: https://aljazari.trieflow.com/